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Almost 8,000 farmers, fishermen on social welfare last year

Farm Assist is a payment to low-income farmers, capped at €208 per week
Eoghan Murphy
Eoghan Murphy

05.45 11 Aug 2022


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Almost 8,000 farmers, fisherme...

Almost 8,000 farmers, fishermen on social welfare last year

Eoghan Murphy
Eoghan Murphy

05.45 11 Aug 2022


Share this article


Almost 8,000 low-income farmers and fishermen got social welfare assistance from the State last year.

Mayo, Donegal and Galway had the highest numbers.

Farm Assist is a payment to low-income farmers, capped at €208 per week.

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Fianna Fáil TD Eamon Ó Cuiv says there are specific criteria you have to meet.

"You are subject to a means test, and the means test is quite severe for all means tested schemes.

"[It] includes a partners or spouses income.

"As well as that, of course, they take 70% of the farming income into account".

The Rural Social Scheme is a similar support, aimed at low-income farmers and fishermen.

The Department of Social Protection says 5,004 people benefitted from Farm Assist last year - and 2,981 were on the Rural Social Scheme.

Some 1,356 people in Mayo were on either scheme - the highest in the country.

That is followed by Donegal on 1,272, and then Galway on 874.

Michael Fitzmaurice is an Independent TD for Roscommon-Galway.

"First of all if you look at the areas that the larger numbers would be, it would be in areas where you would have farmers that would own smaller plots of land that would be not big enough to make a living on".

Only six farmers or fishermen in Dublin were on either scheme last year.

Main image: A farmer on a tractor cutting hay in June 2006. Picture by: Michael Grubka / Alamy Stock Photo

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Department Of Social Protection Donegal Farm Assist Farmers Fishermen Galway Low-income Farmers Mayo Michael Fitzmaurice Rural Social Scheme Social Welfare Social Welfare Assistance Éamon Ó Cuív

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