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A number of changes have been made to the milk quota regulations by the above statutory instrument.

Family transactions

Regulation 6, which deals with family transactions, has been amended to provide that, subject to the approval of the minister for agriculture, a beneficiary may lease land to a relative of the deceased owner. (Up to now, the lessee had to be a relative of the beneficiary.)

Partnerships

The partnership regulations (SI no 97/2002) have been amended in a number of ways and anyone involved in setting up a partnership arrangement would need to be aware of these amendments. In particular, a new category of milk production partnership has been created. This allows for a partnership between a parent and his or her child, where the child ‘has received an allocation of milk quota under New Entrant Farming in Partnership’.

Purchase of milk quota by lessee

There has been a substantial amendment to regulation 9 of the 2000 regulations. A lessee can now purchase the lessor’s quota if the lease existed prior to 1 April 2000 (the previous cut-off date had been 13 October 1999).

Where the lease is to a member of the family (as defined), the lessee may now purchase the milk quota where the lease existed prior to 1 April 2001. (The regulation appears to relate to family leases as defined by regulation 6(2) of the regulations. As such leases would have come into existence pursuant to the 2000 regulations, it is presumed that the right to purchase the quota would arise only in respect of leases which came into existence after 1 April 2000.)

Farm retirement leases

The new regulations provide for a new regulation 11 to be inserted in the Milk Quota Regulations. This new regulation replaces regulation 10 (paragraphs 3, 4 and 5).

Regulation 10 of the 2000 regulations (paragraphs 3,4 and 5) had allowed the minister to grant new leases of land and quota where a farm retirement lease of land and quota had been entered into but the lessee no longer wished to continue the lease.

Under the new regulations, the new lease to the new lessee must be signed within six months of the ending of the previous lease.