Ryanair CEO and beef farmer Michael O'Leary has said that inheritance tax relief and bigger farms are needed to get young people into farming.

O'Leary, one of Ireland's most successful businessmen, recently sat down with Agriland's Breifne O'Brien to talk about a wide range of issues.

Farm succession and generational renewal were among those issues that came up for discussion, with O'Leary giving his view on what needs to happen to get younger people into farming, and the challenges to that.

He said: "I think there are reasonable systems there in place... There’s reasonably favourable tax structures there for young people who want to come into farming or to inherit farms."

O'Leary said that the price and availability of land was a key issue in farm succession.

"It's much more difficult given the price of land in Ireland; how do you get young people into farming who are not able to inherit farms, and that’s going to be much more challenging," he said.

"I think what's going to happen is average farm sizes are going to get significantly bigger," O'Leary said.

The Ryanair boss added: "The people who are retiring and selling their farms, they're getting more for the land and I think they're entitled to do that... I think the best way of encouraging family farms to stay within families is inheritance tax relief."

When asked about the future role of smaller, part-time farms, O'Leary, in typical style, didn't mince words.

"I don't see any role for the smaller part-time farms. The days of smaller part-time farms, the fella with 20ac and 10 sucklers, they're over," he said.

The businessman added: "We need bigger farms. We need younger people coming into farming, establishing bigger dairy operations, bigger tillage operations, bigger beef operations.

"The industry needs to continue to become more and more efficient... Leasing land is probably the best way of encouraging younger farmers to expand and invest in their farms, but even the price of leased land is becoming expensive," he said.