Waterford Leader Partnership

Aim of the Scheme

The aims of the scheme are to provide:

• Certain services of benefit to rural communities by harnessing the skills and talents available among low-income farmers and fishermen.

• Income support to low income farmers and fishermen who are in receipt of specified, primarily, long-term social welfare paymentsNumber of places and location

Up to 2,500 places will be made available on the RSS.  These will be allocated on a county basis by using the number of farmers in receipt of Farm Assist and allocating the places for the RSS to each county on a pro-rata basis with a minimum allocation of places to counties with a small number of farmers on Farm Assist.

Who is eligible?

The scheme is aimed, primarily, at farmers who are in receipt of long-term social welfare payments, but the rules will admit low-income fishermen also.  To be eligible to participate an individual must be in receipt of:

Farm Assist

Or have a herd number and be in receipt of one of the following long-term Social Welfare payments

Unemployment Assistance

Unemployment Benefit, if previously on CE

Disability Allowance

The dependent spouse of a person qualified will also be eligible to participate in the scheme as an alternate, i.e. instead of the spouse to whom the herd number is allocated.

Successful applicants for the scheme who are in receipt of Farm Assist, Unemployment Assistance or Unemployment Benefit may not receive this payment from the Department of Social and Family Affairs so long as they participate on the scheme.

Further information is available as PDF