Legal clearance will be a crucial next step before changes to the Fair Deal scheme to protect family farms can go ahead.

The Attorney General has not formally approved draft legislation reforming the Fair Deal scheme. However, the IFA was led to understand that no significant hurdles exist to its passage at a meeting with Minister of State for mental Health and Older People Jim Daly last week.

They meet monthly to review progress on the Government’s budget commitment to resolve the open-ended nursing home charges applied to farm assets under the scheme.

Once approved by cabinet, changes will need to go through the Oireachtas.

“It is hoped that the legislative process to amend the Fair Deal scheme will commence in quarter one of 2018,” a Department of Health spokesperson told the Irish Farmers Journal.

Finding a slot for this debate is likely to add to delays. Amendments expected from rural TDs seeking further improvements in how the scheme is applied to farm families could push changes back again.

The rule imposing charges on assets transferred five years prior to entering a nursing home is a particular bone of contention.

The legislation will also need to clarify what happens to families already engaged in the scheme.

IFA farm family chair Maura Canning, who has been advocating for Fair Deal reform for several years and is leaving her position at the association’s next AGM in mid-January, is still hoping to see this campaign through.