Older farmers should be paid a lump sum of €25,000 once they transfer the farm to a successor, the Commission on Generational Renewal in Farming has recommended.

It is one of 31 recommendations made to the Minister for Agriculture this week by an expert committee tasked with improving succession in Irish farming.

Younger farmers should also be paid €25,000 in the form of an establishment payment, it advised. If adopted, such a move would see Ireland bring back installation aid which ended following the economic crash of 2008.

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Modelling by the Government-appointed commission shows that the proposed succession scheme could cost almost €1bn, with average payments per farmer of almost €63,000 over five years.

The report also calls for favourite nephew/niece relief to be expanded to grandchildren.

Pressure is now mounting on Minister for Agriculture Martin Heydon to deliver a succession scheme.

However, he warned that funding for such a scheme would have to come from an already depleted CAP budget, when interviewed by the Irish Farmers Journal this week.