Fianna Fáil leader Micheál Martin has pledged to get the Fair Deal legislation enacted early in the life of the next Dáil. It limits payment from farm assets to 7.5% per year for a maximum of three years. He said that one of the motivating factors for wanting the outgoing Government to run until May was to pass that legislation, pledging €225m over five years to pay the cost.

An Taoiseach Leo Varadkar blamed the delay on retrospection. “Making any scheme retrospective to the time of the announcement rather than the time it is legislated for – aside from being expensive – could actually create a lot of precedent issues for other schemes so that’s a real difficulty.

“We need to get the attorney general’s advice,” he said.