Mr. John Enright:

-----is to look after those people. We have members in the 26 counties. We have looked at the various options available under the single farm payment scheme. On balance, while it is not perfect, we believe the Minister's proposal on convergence is the best way to go to try to protect these payments. The single farm payment is hugely important to our members. Without the single farm payment in 2009 our members would have faced a catastrophic situation. Our key objective is the protection of single farm payments. If the payment is reduced in the budget, we will be under pressure. A change to the level of distribution will also cause us problems. Our objective is to protect the people who are actively farming the land.

The issue of armchair farmers was mentioned. We have come across situations both last year and this year of landowners who, having rented land to farmers for up to 20 years, are now taking that land back in order for them to draw down entitlements themselves. We believe this is widespread.