In its pre-budget submission, the Irish Farmers' Association yesterday called on the Government to develop a countryside renewal scheme similar to the urban renewal scheme.
The IFA said the dereliction of properties in many parts of rural Ireland took away from the amenity value of the areas in question and represented a lost opportunity for economic development.
"Renewal schemes developed in urban areas have had a profound effect in promoting economic activity in our towns and cities by improving the overall quality of structures in the areas to which they relate," said the submission.
It said the positive impact of these schemes had given rise to demands for a scheme which would replicate many of the positive features of the urban renewal schemes in rural areas but with the addition of effects which would be of a particularly rural development nature.
The rural renewal scheme, the IFA argued, could play an important role in preserving the vernacular architecture of rural Ireland and help stem the flow of rural migration into towns and cities.
It could also enhance the overall amenity value of rural areas through contributing towards the realisation of the objectives of the Operational Programme for Tourism and the agri-tourism grants scheme.
Such a scheme would also help meet the high costs of renovating structures located in rural areas, encourage indigenous enterprises and small industry. Commenting on the submission to the Minister for Finance, Mr McCreevy, the IFA president, Mr John Donnelly, said agriculture was the only major sector of the economy currently suffering an income decline and it needed an urgent boost in the forthcoming Budget.
He called on Mr McCreevy not to overlook the investment demands of farming and other exposed sectors of the economy while easing the burden of personal taxation in the Budget.
"Mr McCreevy has an exceptional opportunity to lease a lasting mark on the economically exposed farming and small business sector to help achieve the scale and efficiencies necessary to be competitive into the 21st century," he said.
"Without vital investment incentives, farming will quickly become the poor relation in the rapidly growing and prospering Irish economy. Failure by the Minister to grasp this opportunity will have disastrous consequences for both our industry and the Irish economy as a whole," he added.
Mr Donnelly said he accepted there was a compelling argument for reductions in the heavy tax burden on wage earners. Farmers and the self-employed needed greater business reliefs to meet the constant investment demands.
He said the four central issues at the core of the submission were the need for an increase in capital allowances on farm machinery, the countryside renewal scheme, the extension of the £800 employee allowance to all taxpayers and a £12 million allocation for the scheme of installation aid for young farmers, a scheme suspended last August.