DEAR EDITOR

I am writing this with a amount of anger which I am sure many will feel having read in the Irish Farmers Journal of 18 April, that a CAP payment remains uncertain for older farmers who receive a State pension.

The messing about with farmers receiving a State pension has gone on for too long. Farmers pay their contributions – if they don’t, they will not get their pension.

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There are no non-contributory pensions for farmers.

Wives and women in general who work on farms have been treated like it’s the dark ages.

Is taking CAP money from those older farmers the way to treat people who have kept this country afloat when the Celtic Tiger (who forgot to roar into farmyards) left the country on its knees?

All around me I have seen how hard those farmers have worked, how they paid those contributions even in bad years when money was not plentiful.

I would say “hands off pensioners’ CAP payments”.

It has nothing to do with State pensions. I believe and hope there will be a huge outcry if this issue so much as raises its head.