Farm Electrification Grant Scheme for Disadvantaged Areas

Rules

Electricity supply was grant-aided for the following:

• Sheds/slatted sheds
• Poultry units
• Water pumps
• Pig units
• Pump houses
• Mushroom units
• Milking machines and cooling equipment
• Glasshouses
• Corn grinders
• Domestic dwelling houses.

Electricity supply was not grant-aided for the following:

• Work already completed or commenced*
• Supply to an electric fence only
• Supply to a caravan or mobile home
• Supply to any premises where the applicant was engaged in any business or professional activity other than farming or to an 'outoffice' where there was no ongoing significant farming activity.

* Under no circumstances was work to be commenced before an application was approved. Commencement of work prior to approval constituted a withdrawal of the application.

Grant aid was not available to applicants whose off-farm income exceeded a certain annual amount.

To be eligible for grant aid, you had to satisfy some strict criteria:

• You must have practised farming on land owned or held on long-term lease
• You must have occupied and farmed at least 3 hectares in a Disadvantaged Area
• Farming must have been your main occupation and principal source of income. You were deemed to have farming as your main occupation if at least 50% of your income was gained from farming and more than 50% of your time was spent on farming activities.

Farm income

The total amount of allowable off-farm income was assessed in accordance with the Department of Agriculture, Food and the Marine's annual reference income for the farm improvement programme. If your off-farm income exceeded that amount you were not eligible for grant aid.

In order to satisfy the Department of Agriculture, Food and the Marine that you were actively engaged in farming, you may have been required to produce a farm plan completed by a Teagasc or an agricultural advisor.

Income from the continuous letting of land for more than 11 months had to be identified separately.

The following documentation may have been required:

• Assessment notice for income tax purposes issued by the Revenue Commissioners or
• Where the assessment notice for income tax purposes did not show farm income separately, farm accounts as supplied to the Revenue Commissioners, for the same tax year.

To comply with the scheme, you must have complied with current tax clearance procedures.

The grant must have been availed of within 1 month of the offer being made and the premises must have been wired and ready to have electricity supply connected within 3 months of the date of offer. Construction work would not start until the equipment for which supply was requested had been installed.

Eligibility of second dwelling houses

Supply to a second dwelling house on a farm was only allowable in the following cases:

• Where the original house was in an unrepairable condition;
• Where the applicant was farming the land, fulfilled the last two conditions above, was the son/daughter of the registered owner and could provide satisfactory evidence that he/she would inherit the farm.