Galway Government TD rejects Minister’s farm students grants test

By TOM GILMORE EASTâ€Ë†GALWAY Government TD Paul Connaughton will oppose a proposal by Minister Ruairí Quinn to assess the value of farms and small businesses when giving out student grants, while the IFA Regional Development Officer in Galway, Roy Oâ€â„¢Brien has described it as â€Å“unfairâ€Â, â€Å“discriminatoryâ€Â and â€Å“complete left-wing politicsâ€Â. While the backbench Fine Gael TD was less vocal than the IFA chief in his views he is still making it clear that Minister Quinn will face opposition from him in any such move and he will be telling him that. â€Å“I have come out publicly against this before and I will do so again. I donâ€â„¢t believe that it is fair and I will be telling this to both Minister Quinn and to the Agriculture Minister Simon Coveney,â€Â said Deputy Connaughton. He added that the owners of small firms, shops and pubs would also be hit if this proposal is passed to bring those with farms or businesses worth more than €750,000 into the means-test net. â€Å“It is the income of the person that should dictate, just the same as it does for everybody else and I donâ€â„¢t believe this proposal would be fair for farmers or for small businesses. I would have grave concerns that it would discriminate against those groups and I am opposed to it,â€Â he added.[private] â€Å“In the case of farmers the farm is the tool that they use to generate income. This can vary dramatically from year to year, with weather being a huge factor. â€Å“Looking at the bad year that farmers had in 2012, due to the terrible weather, this sort of means testing is not on. Indeed no year is a good time to consider this type of means testing which should be based on income, as is the case for all other sectors of society,â€Â said Deputy Connaughton. When asked if he would vote against such legislation if it came before the Dáil Deputy Connaughton says that it is not at that stage and he will be recording his opposition to it immediately with the two ministers concerned. Based on an average land price of €10,000 per acre many Galway farm families living on holdings of over 75 acres could be badly hit by any such legislation which, if passed, would bring those with farms or businesses worth €750,000 into the means-test net. Roy Oâ€â„¢Brien of the IFA pulls no punches in saying that this proposal is anti-farming and anti-small business. â€Å“This proposal is totally off the wall because while some families might earn money similar to an industrial wage off 75 acres, if the weather was good every year and no stock died, many others would be losing money every year on a farm of this size. â€Å“Agricultural land varies in quality from one area to another and one wonders where they got this 75-acre template from, when land quality, and the income a farmer can obtain from it, is so different even from village to village,â€Â says Roy Oâ€â„¢Brien. He added that a personâ€â„¢s P60 dictates what they earn annually and as â€Å“all farmers now file accountsâ€Â that should be the only basis for all student grant assessments. â€Å“There are huge cost implications for farmers, with fuel, feed and fertiliser driving down margins from year to year. â€Å“Margins fluctuate for many other reasons too and the weather is the most important factor of all. The margins for farmers and business people can go up and down many times during the four years that their children are in college. So this is a most unfair proposal as there is no relation between the value of land and the annual income that a farmer can get from it, which varies from year to year,â€Â he added. Meanwhile IFA President John Bryan has challenged Teagasc to immediately clarify the role it has played in facilitating Minister for Education, Ruairí Quinn, in proposing that children from a farm with net assets of €750,000 would be excluded from third-level maintenance grants, regardless of income. In reiterating the IFAâ€â„¢s outright opposition to any attempt to include productive assets in the assessment, John Bryan said that calculations reportedly supplied by Teagasc are deeply flawed and will result in discrimination against farm families as eligibility will be based on asset value. â€Å“The existing method of assessment of self-employed income for the maintenance grant already disallows a number of expenses that are included in income tax computation. â€Å“To include productive assets in the maintenance grant assessment would further discriminate against the self-employed, including farmers. These assets are required by self-employed businesses to generate income, and are not a measure of additional ability to pay,â€Â John Bryan added. But a spokesperson for Teagasc said it did not provide the type of calculation suggested for means testing to any third party. â€Å“Teagasc does not publish any Family Farm Income (FFA) estimates for different farm asset values,â€Â said a Teagasc spokesperson. Many political observers say that Fine Gael backbenchers from rural constituencies, such as Paul Connaughton, will thwart any attempt by Minister Quinn to introduce this form of student grant means testing, even to the point of voting against it if it were to be introduced in the Dáil.[/private]