Budget 2017: Farmer’s sense of ‘relief’ at new measures

South Galway farmer Michael Kelly won't be ordering an extra hair shirt any time soon and senses "relief" that Budget 2017 is "not punitive".

"We were worried that the Minister for Finance would put an extra bit on the excise duty for farm diesel, but the only people to be worried are the smokers,"said Mr Kelly, who lives near Ardrahan, below the Slieve Aughty mountains.

Brexit and a bad summer are two nagging headaches for the former Irish Farmers’ Association (IFA) county vice-chair and his neighbours in the karst limestone area which is prone to more frequent flooding.

The ewes on his 50 hectare farm have also had headaches from fighting. It is a sign of broken weather when they are “at each other like that”, he says.

Mr Kelly had hoped there would be a contingency fund for weather-related issues, as prime grassland which had never been flooded before has been badly affected this year and grain farmers have losses of up to 50 per cent on yields.

Instead, the Minister for Finance has approved a €150 million “agri cash flow” support loan fund with an interest rate of 2.95 per cent.

Minister for Agriculture and Food Michael Creed has said this "provides highly flexible low cost loans for Irish farmers".

“This move is welcome, as is the opportunity to spread tax liability,” Mr Kelly said.

“Funds have already been earmarked for flood relief ,so there’s nothing new in that, but there’s tax relief for energy efficiency on farms as part of climate change measures and that makes sense,” Mr Kelly said.

He has also welcomed the increased threshold on capital acquisitions tax, which will ease the tax burden on transfer of a family farm from one generation to the next.

A number of “inside the farm gate” supports through a €601 million development programme include a €25 million sheep welfare scheme.

“This has been well publicised, and is intended to encourage younger and part-time farmers to stay in sheep rearing by awarding them a payment of €10 per ewe,” Mr Kelly said.

It is recognising a problem where the national ewe flock has been diminishing, he pointed out. If the plan works, to quote composer JS Bach, “sheep may safely graze”.

“Hopefully the application procedure will not be too complex,” he said.

Rural crime

Resources for the Garda to deter rural crime have been a priority for Mr Kelly and his neighbours, and he does not believe the extra resources are enough.

“As for the promised sugar tax, it is no harm –and it will come in, as we have to do something about obesity,” Mr Kelly said.

He believes rural depopulation and bad planning decisions which allowed out-of-town shopping malls to drain business from town centres requires “real commitment” and not just money.

Minister for Arts,Heritage, Regional, Rural and Gaeltacht Affairs Heather Humphreys has said she will "shortly" be publishing an action plan for rural development.

She has announced a trebling in funding to €12 million for the town and village regeneration scheme, an additional €8 million for national rural development schemes, including the recently re-opened Clár programme, and €40 million for the EU Leader scheme next year.