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DEAR EDITOR

I am so disappointed at the recent scheme to repay the forgotten farmers. Just to remind readers – this scheme was designed to make financial amends to farmers that did not receive Installation Aid (payment to young farmers).

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The scheme to recompense these farmers was keenly awaited as Charlie McConalogue started planning this two years ago, allocating money in last year’s budget. Martin Heydon continued this with his own commitment to deal with it. Several conditions had to be met, most seemed fair and designed to ensure applicants had not received a similar payment already.

However, this summer when applications were invited for those forgotten farmers to get a payment, a new age condition was introduced – only farmers under the age of 40 (born on or after January 1 1985) would qualify for payment. Why?

The number of farmers who did not receive Installation Aid was numerically a small enough group so to split them into two groups that qualify into payment based on their date of birth to me is highly unfair. To me, if you did not get the Installation Aid, you should be entitled to the forgotten farmer payment. As a farmer who missed out, the whole payment to one group and not to another reeks of unfairness, and there is a very strong sense of injustice about the whole thing. Minister Heydon in his setting up of the age limit has been very penny-pinching in his approach to the scheme.

In a phone call I had with Department officials, they explained they could only implement the scheme according to the terms and conditions. The staff explained to me that the current definition of a young farmer according to European schemes is 40. That may be true for farm schemes/young farmer aid now, but I disagree.

I think the real reason for this age limit is merely to limit the size of the group eligible for the forgotten farmer payment. At the time of the Installation Aid non-payment, I met all the relevant criteria – surely that is the whole point of the forgotten farmer scheme? But, none of that matters now as I am deemed to be not within the arbitrary age limit, and thereby not eligible.

Surely the criteria for receiving the payment should be non-receipt of Installation Aid, but now Minister Heydon has created a new category, the forgotten forgotten farmer.

It’s ironic that with such a huge emphasis on succession in agriculture, the only one dragging its heels is our own Department.