Seán Canney (Galway East, Independent)
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482. To ask the Minister for Employment Affairs and Social Protection if she will consider including the ECO scheme in the list of payments from farm environmental schemes which have disregards in terms of social protection payments such as farm assist, as the current list includes now-defunct environmental schemes; if she agrees that the rationale for the disregard is to ensure that people on lower incomes are not punished financially for taking part in environmental schemes such as the ECO scheme; and if she will make a statement on the matter. [29506/24]

Heather Humphreys (Cavan-Monaghan, Fine Gael)
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Farm Assist is a statutory means-tested income support specifically for farmers on low incomes. There are just over 3,700 claims in payment at present. The Government has provided €50.93 million for the scheme in 2024.

I have introduced a number of improvements to the means test for Farm Assist in recent years.

Under the Farm Assist means test, income from a range of agri-environmental schemes attract a disregard of €5,000, with 50% of the balance assessed as means. The amount disregarded was increased from €2,540, with effect from January 2023.

These schemes have an environmental focus and in the context of the Government's climate change agenda, the disregard for income received from them aims to incentivise farmers to participate in them, and results in a more beneficial means assessment for those customers who have income from these schemes.

Further to the commitment in the Programme for Government and in the Rural Development Policy 2021-2025, my Department reviewed the means assessment disregards for Farm Assist in 2021. One of the key recommendations of the report was to provide for an expansion to the list if agri-environmental schemes that qualify for a disregard. I added an additional 19 schemes to the list from June 2022, and a further 4 schemes from April 2023.

I am committed to working with my colleague, the Minister for Agriculture, Food and the Marine, to identify any additional schemes contained in Ireland's CAP Strategic Plan 2023-2027 that could be considered for inclusion in the list of agri-environmental schemes which attract a disregard for Farm Assist.

The Department of Agriculture, Food and the Marine has advised that the ECO scheme is not considered an agri-environmental scheme and is considered to be a payment under the Direct Payment System. Such payments do not attract the disregard that applies to income from agri-environmental schemes but are included as farm income and assessed at 70%. A disregard of 30% is applied under this assessment.

I trust this clarifies the position for the Deputy.