Fears that Offaly farmers will lose access to third level grants

Offaly farm families with children in third level education, or who hope to go to college this autumn are bracing themselves for a significant rise in fees. This follows the announcement last week that Education Minister Ruairi Quinn is planning to revamp the system whereby farmers and self employed are means tested for third level grant purposes. In a planned review of the grants system, Mr Quinn established an inter-departmental group which has produced a draft report which will be presented to him following the Dail's summer break. Under the present system, farmers are assessed on their incomes only but there are fears that Minister Quinn will attempt to change the criteria to include their assets, particularly the size of their holdings. However this week Offaly IFA chair Joe Parlon said there's no point basing it on a farm if the land is not productive. "You have to base it on income," Mr Parlon said this week. "To try and bring in the value of the farm would just be absolutely crazy." Mr Parlon said farm incomes are considerably less than the average industrial wage or those in the public sector, which explains why a higher percentage of farm families have traditionally been eligible for third level grants. Mr Parlon agreed that farm land certainly has a value, but while being worked it's only a tool for making a living. "If you have to sell your farm to educate your children, there'll be no future farm for a person to live on," he added. Without being sold off, he said a farm is "not an awful lot of good to you unless you can make money out of it". IFA President John Bryan rejected outright any move to include productive assets, such as farmland, in the assessment of third level maintenance grants. He warned that the farming community would not tolerate any changes which would result in children from low income farm families being excluded from third level grants. "Any report that would come up with such a proposal would show a complete bias against farmers and other self-employed," he said. "The Minister is in no doubt about IFA's position on this issue. At a meeting with the Minister earlier this year, we made it clear that productive assets, such as farmland, are required by self-employed businesses to generate income and are not a measure of additional ability to pay. This means that farmland and other productive assets cannot form any part of a fair means assessment." "The Minister must ensure that whatever changes are introduced to the maintenance grants system do not restrict low-income families from any sector from access to third-level education," Mr Bryan concluded. Meanwhile ICMSA President John Comer has reiterated his total opposition to the proposal regarding a capital assets test for third level grants which he described as "blatantly unfair and pandering to the very worst urban prejudices and myths about farmers and their finances". Mr Comer said the ICMSA would be contacting every TD again over the next few days and he was confident that a very solid number would agree that a move to any form of capital assets test on third level grants would very specifically discriminate against the farming community. Mr Comer pointed out that the nub of the matter was this misconception that a farm - which is actually the tool by which a farmer earns his income - is, in any fashion, a capital asset similar to government gilts or blue chip equities or other easily cash-convertible assets. This was a complete misunderstanding of the reality, according to Mr Comer. "The family farm is the method by which the individual earns his income and does not form part of the income itself," he stated. "Any proposal that ignores this fundamental fact will arouse suspicion throughout farming communities that we are seing a very old and unfounded urban bias against farmers being re-heated and served up again as something new and progressive, when it was nothing of the sort," observed Mr Comer. Speaking to the Offaly Independent on Thursday evening last Fine Gael TD Marcella Corcoran Kennedy said speculating on what might happen is unhelpful. She said she understands natural concern of anyone from a farming background, but said said whatever has to be done "will have to be fair".