The Irish Grassland Association held a Succession Planning workshop on the 28th of September 2010 in Kilkenny Mart which was organized and chaired by Anne-Marie Flanagan, IGA Regional Development Officer. The workshop was free to Members and their families. 26 members attended and the audience was a mix of young and old.

The first speaker was Clare O Keeffe of Succession Ireland, based in Mallow Co Cork. Clare helps farming families to sit down with each other and resolve conflicts within the family and help with the succession process. She says “it’s a very emotional journey for all involved and has to be taken slowly”. Clare is a dairy farmer herself so has great understanding of where everyone is coming from. Our second speaker was Aisling Meehan, a solicitor and Tax consultant from Newmarket on Fergus. Aislings’ family are dairy farmers in Co. Clare and she has a lot of experience in the family farm succession area.

Clare began the work shop with the question to those nearing retirement as to where they wanted to live when they retired and for many years after this. Clare discussed how people react to this question. The first response is that they don’t see themselves living anywhere else but their present home but the reality of getting old can mean that many years later they may change their minds. This change of mind can be costly to the younger generation at times and she urged that people think seriously about this. She also mentioned the difference in genders answers to this question. Most men don’t see it as a question for them but surprisingly enough when you get into a conversation with many of the women involved, they have an idea of a small bungalow being built on the farm or a house in town. This highlights the reason as to why Clare not only speaks to the family as a whole but also talks to them individually.

Clare spoke about the typical Irish father-son relationship and how important this relationship is when it comes to the succession of the farm. She advised couples with young children to always praise their children, especially in their work on the farm. She explained that this will lead to a respect between parents and children and will lead to children respecting parents later in life which will make things easier when hard decisions need to be made. She sees everyday the issues between the 2 generations and puts these difficult relationships down to lack of respect and understanding between the generations.

In the area of wills and inheritance, Clare explained the dangers of trying to treat everyone equally. It is not a simple process and if in the end if everyone felt treated fairly that this is the best you can hope for. Unfortunately there will always be a time where people will feel that they were not treated fairly and this can then lead to family disputes and costly solicitors. This can destroy any inheritance left. Aisling Meehan then took us through examples where wills were contested and the consequences of this, both personally and financially. Some of the examples she gave were extremely interesting and thought-provoking. We then went on to talk about the issue between a successor and their siblings and how to manage this situation. Both Aisling and Clare gave us lots of examples where the current economic climate has seen the return of many unemployed engineers and tradesmen and what this now means for the one who has being at home developing the farm for the past 10 years. Some of this was eye opening to many in the audience and drove home the idea of having a well thought out succession plan to protect all involved.

From there we moved on to marriage breakdowns and the consequences on the family and the successor when this happens in either an older generation or a young generation. Aisling then took us through the proposed Civil Law partnership and the consequences for co-habitating couples and for children in these relationships. Many of the details in this act surprised many at the workshop and are definitely thought-provoking.

Aisling, who is also a tax consultant, took us through the relevant taxes associated with land transfer but both her and Clare urged people not to race into things because of the stamp duty relief available to under 35’s. Getting the succession plan right is much more important. Transfer land should only take place when both generations are agreed and feel secure in the plan.

Clare left us with the thought that research shows that we remember the fiver we lost better than the fiver we were given. She explained that that an individual can carry the loss of a farm for their entire life. Which only goes to highlight the need for people to think long and hard about succession now no matter what your stage in life is? Aim to make every one feel they have being treated fairly, but not necessarily equally!!

The day ended with a lot of discussion between both generations in the audience who were keen to get the others opinion. A huge part of the day was taken up with great examples of cases that Clare and Aisling have being involved and these were a great way to get people in the room to relate to their own situation.

We received great feed back from this event and it was surprising the different bits that everyone took home with them.

For further information contact Anne-Marie Flanagan Regional Development Officer on 0879156411 or by email click here


Anne-Marie Flanagan B.Agr. Sci

Regional Development Officer

Irish Grassland Association