According to ICSA beef committee chair Edmond Phelan, one of the key things that needs to be addressed in budget 2017 is the issue of long-term leasing.

“The problem with long-term leasing is that you can’t avail of the tax-free system with your own children,” said Phelan, who believes something needs to be done to encourage earlier retirement of farmers. “I can understand why direct relations weren’t included as it was an incentive to encourage land mobility. But it actually acts as a disincentive in the transfer of land and should be opened to direct relations.”

He echoed calls for action to be taken on the Fair Deal scheme and said farm safety needs to be a priority.

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“Farm safety is an issue that every farmer needs to look at and if people could earn a decent income from farming they wouldn’t be as stretched,” Phelan said, emphasising the need for the budget to be sympathetic to farmers in order to reduce the number of accidents.

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