Ceisteanna ó Cheannairí - Leaders' Questions
Dail Éireann — 2024-03-21
============================================================

Micheál Martin (FF), Cork South-Central

I referenced the CAP earlier. Approximately €10 billion, between EU and Exchequer funding, will support 130,000 farm families under the new CAP.
On forestry, there is a new €1.3 billion forestry programme, which is open for applications. New licences are issuing every week. We believe this will be a significant departure from previous years where the industry was in difficulty. It will see an increase in forestry premiums of between 46% and 66% and farmers will receive 20 years of premium payments compared to 15 years for non-farmers. A farmer planting, for example, 1 ha of native broadleaf trees will receive €1,103 per year for 20 years tax-free. That is approximately €22,000 for planting 1 ha of land. Farmers can plant a hectare of native woodland without the need for a licence. There are certainly improvements in forestry but delivery will be key in that respect.
On the residential zoned land tax, that has been deferred. There is a remapping under way which, I think, is coming close to completion. I understand the points the Deputy has made. We are endeavouring to make sure that those who are in production and who want to continue farming are not taxed unfairly. That is a fair objective to try to achieve.

---

Source: Houses of the Oireachtas. Licensed under CC BY 4.0 (https://creativecommons.org/licenses/by/4.0/). The Official Report is revised after first publication; the fetch timestamp below identifies the version quoted.

Record URI: https://data.oireachtas.ie/akn/ie/debateRecord/dail/2024-03-21/debate/main
Retrieved: 2026-08-14T04:52:48+00:00
Sitting date: 2024-03-21