Michael Fitzmaurice urges young farmers to plan and control finances

First of all, you're welcome. I had the pleasure of meeting you before. It's great to see young people interested in fairman, first of all, and in sheep fairman. I know that some of you are a cattle as well, but the numbers of sheep have dropped and it's great to see. And you're coming from different backgrounds. I know of my own and Kildare and Galway and Ruscommon, that you have different backgrounds and different types of land. We are doing up a cap proposal at the moment. Actually, yesterday we've finished a lot of it and we have included young farmers. We've done a fair piece in it, the Commission did, because we would be aware of your ideas. And the big problem is, as you've highlighted before, and we're blue on the face at it. First of all, for you to live in a farm, you have to be able to get planning. And if you're in both near Earthgreg or if you're in Westport, it's a different and probably set up than being in Kildare, which you respect. But the only problem in Kildare, you could have TII stopping you building a house or down Ruscommon with the new road. And we have to make sure we're actually bringing in the TII in January sometime to talk to them about these problems for young people needing to build houses, among other things. But we have that already put on the programme and that will be of benefit. You'll be able to see that live here when they do come in. We're doing greenways and a lot of different things, the things that will affect you down the line. In relation to, I think, your idea on the young farmer, and I talked to, I think it was Damien that spoke the night I was talking to, about a young farmer when they start, I won't say it in public, what we'd say down the country, when they start to have that much money. But they, and they have to try and get land and they have to try and get sheep or cattle or something to get the ANC if you're in an ANC area. So, you know, the rules, young farmers starting off, there's a 15% inspection rate on them. And the reason being, and one thing I will say to every young farmer, when you do your green search, for the love of God, will you make sure that you're in control of the financial aspect? Because that's where every young farmer falls. And I know, and the dog on the street knows, that no one can go out and buy 20 bullocks this minute or 40 cows or 20 cows. Someone has to help them. And I think there should be an understanding that they have to be helped to get them off their feet. But every young farmer, no matter where you go, I see it week in, week out, make sure you're in financial control, because that's one of the criteria, the young farmer scheme, that if you're getting 8,000 a year on that, there's a penalty of 8 more. And I just, I keep saying it. I think the idea of the three-year system, I think to us, Damien, you were talking about that, in relation to whatever acres or hectares you had the first year, the second year, the third year, you get a median between the three of them, and I think that's a good idea. As I said the night to you, when I met you, every idea you have there is good. There's nothing I disagree with. Succession, major problem for young farmers. And in some parts of the country, it's going to be more awkward than others. In a retirement scheme, we've talked about it here time and time again, and the new cap budget is talking about helping young farmers. But I know you might have said I was very blunt that night. The problem is that the EU at the moment are cutting that budget at the moment 24%. Hopefully, that's the first belt that's gone at it. Hopefully, it'll be less. But we will be encouraging, and we wrote it into our document yesterday that the chair and the committee has put forward, that the national government will bring it up. Because if you look at the aspirations that's on the new cap, 300 grand, happy days to get you going to buy a lot of sheep. But the problem is, where do we get all this money from? And if we don't help young farmers, we're in trouble. In the line of the sheep side of it, I believe that this needs to be a partnership. I believe government support is one side of it. But I know I met Owen, and I'm not singling him out. But factories have to step up to the mark as well when it comes to... We cannot have a situation of basically a seesaw. One year down, one year up a bit, one year down again. We need to give farmers, basically, even if it's like a purchaser group, that you do a five-year plan with young farmers, that they are brought forward and that there's a deal done to make sure you keep them in the game. Because the facts are, and I've said this openly, we have 160,000 less cattle killed this year. We have 40,000 less cattle exported. Add the figures. You don't have to be a mathematician. There's a factory somewhere in this country going to come under pressure. There's a mart somewhere in this country going to come under pressure. And if we keep losing 250,000 cows, and I know my whole year are cows and that, but if you do that, if we keep losing, well then, obviously, all you'll have is grey grass or brown grass in the field and one bit wandered around. It's no good. It's not productivity. If you look at Europe, what it has lost in farmers over the last few years, it's time to wake up, to be quite frank about it. I think this committee agrees with everything. I think you have great ideas. I think it's good that the minister has engaged with you, but engage with you and welcome in it. Should we all welcome you? You'll nearly be carried out there shoulder high because you put out a great performance. But the bottom line on it is, for you, it's going forward, you need the vision and you need to know where you're going for at least five years and you need to have the return for your work because you're very educated young people. Every one of you today, I asked you what you had all done. And the great, you have other choices. And most of the youth of this country has other choices now. So all I'm saying to you is keep up the good work. You can answer the few bits or elaborate on bits I've talked about. And it's great to see you coming in. Thank you. There's a lot of points to cover there. If you like, there's an opportunity to very quickly answer a number of them. I'm conscious as well that there are other unanswered questions from earlier contributors and that you'll be... The opportunity is available to you to make a submission on any unanswered questions as well and to send them on to the committee. I'll just touch a small bit on the 24% cut. The questions are on the transcript anyway if you want to have a look over and check on any ones that remain unanswered. So if there's a couple of brief points... A minute or two. I suppose just in terms of the 24% cut, it's a savage knock to farmers' confidence. We acknowledge that there's talk of maybe increasing the young farmer allocation from 3% to 6%, but on a reduced budget, it's the same figures that are being moved around and we're potentially losing it in another sector, be it the likes of sheep and farming scheme or those measures. Again, just you mentioned the TII and CPO. So you can have a person in an office who can draw a line, be it a cycle path, a roadway, and that farmer's land is as good as sterilised until that project is completed. We've had the N5 at home. One of our colleagues, Ava, is facing into the greenway in Cavern and Leitrim. That's a serious psychological pressure. I saw it at home. We built a shed in 2008 and we had to get a letter of approval to say that the shed wasn't going to affect the N5 corridor. The road has only been constructed now, so it's gone on nearly 20 years. But I don't know if my colleagues have anything to add. But just on the point, what you're saying about the numbers of cattle disappearing, like, just with the cattle first as well, but the cattle and the sheep, but they're not going to go up again. That's the first thing. Like, we're not going to drive the cattle numbers. The suckler farmer isn't going to go up again and the sheep farmer's not going to go up again. But to stabilise what's there, and so it doesn't keep declining. Because if it keeps declining, it'll just be environmental all over and it'll be grass growing in over everything, which, if that's the way it's going to end up, it won't suit any of us that's here. And just as you said about a partnership, we're here talking to ye. There's no point in us talking to ye and it's not anything else happening with it. For ye to go on further with it. But if you're ignored then, sure, there's no sense in any of it. And for the government to listen to ye, it links back to her. We think it's mighty. Then the farmers think, look at the government listening to that committee. So it all links in all together. There was a point brought up about access to land as our biggest issue. And everyone here knows that, unlike a lot of businesses, and that's what we want to run, a business, land cannot be mustered up from anywhere. You can't decide you want to farm and pluck land out of thin air. It has to be existing land. And we see that a lot of existing landowners, they don't want to see the land go from farming. A lot of them are sitting on a massive, massive asset, which they could sell, but they don't want to because they don't want to see it gone from farming. But at the same time, they don't have any financial stability to stop farming it themselves. And we're seeing with some schemes, in particular amongst sheep, just with a lot of the land types that a lot of sheep are on in this country, we've seen a big uptake in the organic farming scheme. And I'd just like to reiterate, I'm not talking about all people that have entered that scheme, but a lot of people have taken it almost as a retirement scheme. And that's where I see that there is an appetite for a retirement scheme, whereby people are going into this scheme and they are reducing their production so much that they essentially have no notable sheep production. We have people there running ewes, drawing an organic farming scheme payment, and they're not even putting a ram out to the ewes. That land, those farmers, I feel like those farmers have essentially taken a retirement scheme. They're getting their payment. It's allowing them to live on. But the land is being retired with them. It's not being farmed. If we were able to put in a scheme that gives them their financial stability after a lifetime of hard work, even though they might not have had the financial reward, they've put in a lifetime of hard work, they're looking to retire, as we see with their reduction of land production. But that land is not being returned to a way that someone else can farm it. So we'll be looking to see for something there. Just on a point, Chair, on one point, I think an idea of the head as well. I was reading it the last night I met them. If I lease to you, it's tax-free under revenue. But to get an older generation to give it to the youngsters, be it their son, daughter, whatever, if we don't get a system that there's some recognition that an older person can lease to the son or daughter and they can get some tax concession, I think that we have a major problem because they don't want to let go a lot. Just before we finish up there, from the group as a whole, I'd like to thank you all for listening to our recommendations today. I'd just like to say from, and I'm sure that the rest of my colleagues here would agree with me, if we all had the chance, we would be farming full-time. This country was built on the backs of our farmers and entire industries depend on them. They depend on the farmers that have gone before us and us coming along in the future. And I think the unfortunate side of that is that that's been forgotten. And our recommendations only go so far. And we rely on you going forward to take our recommendations and to do something for it. To be seen to represent your farmers and represent the people that put food on plates across the country. And I suppose going forward in your CAF negotiations and your domestic budgets and your work for 2026, to think about the farmers, the young farmers of this country, the hundreds if not thousands of us that are in the same boat, all wishing every day that we could be there farming out in the misery of it all. We have options. We are educated. We can go on and get jobs. But we still want to be there. And we still want to dedicate our lives to that land. And I suppose we're not ready to give up. And we expect the same from you. We need to be seen that the young farmers are represented in the future.