This article is from page 44 of the 2008-07-22 edition of The Clare People. OCR mistakes are to be expected so download the original SWF or the rendered page 44 JPG
JUST two months into his steward- ship of the Department of Agricul- ture and Minster Brendan Smith is already in open conflict with the Irish Farmers Association.
A huge row erupted last week fol- lowing the decision by the minister to reveal that farmers paid an average of just £1,895 in tax last year, com- pared to €4,943 by PAYE employees and €12,927 by the self-employed.
IFA President Padraig Walshe re- acted angrily to the revelation, de- scribing 1s as mischievous and mis- leading. “The average family income from farming is a mere €18,100
a year, compared to the €48,300 earned by public-sector workers. There is no mystery about the low tax yield from farmers,” he said.
“The real problem is low incomes and the minister should face up to this. Presenting income-tax pay- ments as a measure of farmers’ con- tribution to the economy is mischie- vous and misleading.”
Smith reacted by rejected the IFA presidents claims, saying that pub- lishing the figures in this was was standard practice as part of the De- partment’s Annual Review and Out- look for Agriculture.
He also pointed out that at the time of the publication of the Annual
Review and Outlook, he drew par- ticular attention to the value of the agri-food sector, accounting for 8 per cent of employment and 10 per cent of exports.
Minister Smith also took the oppor- tunity to highlight the huge impor- tance of farming and the agri-food sector to the economy, both from an employment point of view and also as a major contributor to regional development. The minister outlined the further employment opportuni- ties that can be created in the overall biosector.
Indeed the minister also pointed out that, on the same day as he published the Annual Review and Outlook, he
also published a report showing that the agri-food sector contributes ap- proximately one-third of the net flow of funds into the economy generated by manufacturing exports which the minister noted he described as pro- viding “a timely and accurate indica- tion of the importance of the sector to the economy”.
The minister concluded by say- ing that the Department’s Annual Review and Outlook was a compre- hensive and valuable report, detail- ing the performance of the agri-food sector and providing a range of use- ful statistical data and confirmed that he had no plans to significantly change its content or presentation.