Macra seeks Government action on support for 'forgotten farmers'

Macra has sought assurances from the Government that the 'fogotten farmers' - who have lost out following the removal of young farmer supports - will receive meaningful supports as soon as possible. 

Macra national president Elaine Houlihan and agriculture affairs Chair Liam Hanrahan attended the Taoiseach’s roundtable meeting with farm organisations to discuss policy priorities from the farming organisations. 

At this meeting, Macra brought up many issues that were pertinent to Irish Agriculture such as nitrates, nature restoration, succession and the so called “Forgotten Farmers.” 

In October 2022, Minister McConalogue announced that a scheme to support the Forgotten Farmers was forthcoming. In the meeting with Ms Houlihan, the commitment to resolve the ‘forgotten farmers’ matter was reiterated.  

“We welcome the assurances that the ‘forgotten farmers’ issue will not be left unresolved. We were assured in October that a scheme was forthcoming and it has yet to be delivered. What we need to see is the action sooner rather than later” said Macra National President Elaine Houlihan. 

The “forgotten farmers” are a group of farmers who lost out following the removal of young farmer supports such as Installation Aid due to cuts in public expenditure by the Government following the last recession. 

“These forgotten farmers can wait no longer with rising input and energy costs, many investments have been put on hold with the commitments by the Minister, the time to deliver meaningful supports for these farmers is now” added Ms Houlihan. 

This is a matter that Macra is deeply committed to seeing resolved, she said. Macra has continually lobbied on behalf of the ‘Forgotten Farmers’ to seek the support which they fairly deserve.  

"It is now more than fifteen years since some of these farmers started out in their farming careers, and it is simply not good enough that the mistakes around the removal of supports have not been rectified," Ms Houlihan said.