Martin Ferris (Kerry North-West Limerick, Sinn Fein) | Oireachtas source

I thank Mr. Wall and Mr. Guerin for the presentation, which was well laid out, particularly the legal position on commonages and so forth. That is helpful for all of us who make decisions. Everything on a commonage is dependent on a commonsense approach because, as Deputy Ó Cuív said, one person can cause havoc as a shareholder on a commonage. The west is probably the area most affected, given 19% of the land there is in commonage and that creates problem.

In July 2011, the Minister made it clear that his plan was in support of the concept of active farmers. It is difficult to get a definition of an "active farmer". What is the UFA's definition? Some people believe it is a full-time farmer whose entire income comes from the land while others believe it applies to those who have an income from the land and who through no fault of their own have had to take up off-farm employment and so forth. The definition, however, varies from person to person.

Mr. Wall made an excellent point about the collective agreement concept potentially leading to conflict between different classes of stakeholders. There are dormant and semi-active stakeholders and active stakeholders who are focused on maximising their return from the commonage. I take it there is no way of resolving this legally such that the dormant stakeholder would have to relinquish his or her claim or sell his or her rights.