The Minister for Agriculture Charlie McConalogue said today that Budget 2025 has taken a significant step towards ensuring what he called "high rollers" do not buy land at the cost of local farmers.
Speaking at Government Buildings this morning, Mr McConalogue said that in order to avail of agricultural relief, land must be now be owned for at least six years and actively farmed before it can be passed to the next generation.
He was responding to a question about how the Government was going to address farm land being bought for tax planning purposes.
He said the Government's objective was to support family farms and to prevent the capacity of wealthy individuals from buying land "whose objective isn't to farm."
He said land would have to be be adequately farmed and owned for six years and if land was passed on after this time period, the next individual with ownership would have to abide by the same restrictions.
"So now you have a 12 year period of time where it must be adequately farmed, that both the person that owns it and the person who receives it are able to avail of agricultural relief. My objective here is that it benefits family farmers and young farmers - not high rollers," he said.
The Minister said this was a big, significant intervention by the Government and one they would continue to monitor.
