The Minister for Agriculture, Food and the Marine has told the Dáil there is "no resistance" to developing a scheme to provide support to the ‘forgotten farmers’, but he did not provide any details about when it will be in place or how much financial support will be made available.

Sinn Féin TD for Cavan-Monaghan, Matt Carthy, asked the minister to explain why issues surrounding the forgotten farmers had "still not been resolved".

The Sinn Féin spokesperson on agriculture said:

There are an estimated 4,000 farmers, who had set up their agricultural holdings before 2008 and who were under the age of 40 in 2015, but did not qualify for the Common Agricultural Policy (CAP) supports, as other young farmers did at the time.

Minister Charlie McConalogue promised in October of this year that a scheme would be established to provide specific support to the group known as the forgotten farmers, who he said, were in their current position “through no fault of their own".

In the Dáil last week Deputy Carthy asked the minster to outline his proposals for the forgotten farmers.

Minister McConalogue said in reply:

"I am engaging with my colleague the Minister for Public Expenditure and Reform, Deputy Michael McGrath, regarding the funding required."

He also added that details of the "eligibility requirements and benefits to successful applicants for a scheme to support the forgotten farmer group" had yet to be fully finalised.

"A lot of work is going to do it. It is complex in terms of the detail, identifying the different cohorts and being able to step it out," the minister told the Dáil.

"We are stepping it out and we are now getting to the stage where we are finalising it to open it for applications," he added.

But Deputy Carthy said he had raised the issue of the forgotten farmers a number of times with the Minister for Agriculture and "it still has not been resolved and I would like to know where the resistance is or why we have had these delays".

"In May of that year, he stated: 'The Programme for Government contains a commitment to seek to resolve under the next CAP the issue of support for this category of farmers.' However, by December 2021, which was a full year ago, the language had changed," the deputy added.

He said no one had the "necessary clarity" on when and how any scheme would help the farmers who are affected.

"How much has he sought for the scheme? How much does he envisage that it will be worth to these young farmers who have been disenfranchised for so long?" Deputy Carthy said.

Minister McConalogue said he intended to deliver on the promise he had made to the forgotten farmers of Ireland.

"Let there be no doubt that the scheme will be in place," he said.