DEAR EDITOR,

Ownership of land is understandably an emotive historical issue in Ireland. I am no Dev supporter, but support his founding principle of Fianna Fáil that as many families as practicable should farm the land. We need a debate if the Government still supports this.

If they do they must urgently implement taxation measures to discriminate in favour of families buying land to farm themselves.

This can be done by taxation, stamp duty, rates or property tax, inheritance tax or whatever is necessary to swing the balance back in favour of women or men who want to buy land and farm it themselves.

At wealth management meetings I am invited to with other dentists, we are advised of the investment opportunities created by the lack of rates or property tax on land.

We are told to buy land, lease it out and ultimately use the generous tax exemptions for wealth transfer to our children.

To me, that’s wrong. I don’t advocate a ban on non-farmers buying land, but I do advocate taxing would-be landlords or massive estate land holdings out of the market.

I have bought land, but I genuinely farm it and tramp every wet mountainous acre doing most of the manual labour myself or with my children.

I don’t believe corporate investors, oil money or other business money should be allowed buy up land that family farms need to survive.

Families milking cows under pressure with nitrates derogations should not be competing to buy land to protect their livelihoods with business investors who view Irish land as an investment like stocks and shares.