Pat O'Neill (Fine Gael) | Oireachtas source

Many of the issues I wanted to ask about have been dealt with. Our own group had a meeting with the Minister when he came back from Brussels with the deal and I said I would hold a public meeting in my area, which I did. I was asked specific questions which I e-mailed to the Minister's officials. The biggest issue arising is land. The land system in Ireland is very complicated, whether the land is leased, rented or owned, as is the transfer of land and the transfer of entitlements. I do not know whether the Minister or his officials are expert enough to deal with specific issues. I would welcome a meeting with somebody who is an expert in that area because we all have specific issues in regard to land which has no entitlements. Does that receive the minimum payment now? Who owns the entitlements to land that is leased? Is it the owner or the farmer who has been farming it for the past seven or five years? I do not want to go into specifics but I would welcome it if the Minister would make an official available to the committee to go through aspects such as that. We would all be better informed, because those are the questions we are being asked.

I welcome the measures in regard to young farmers. If we are to achieve the Food Harvest 2020 targets, we must make a big issue of getting more young people involved in farming. I agree with Deputy Deering that we will have to provide an incentive at the other end to try to get people to move out of, or to retire from, farming and let younger people take over. I do not know whether it could be done through Pillar 2, but we should look at a scheme.

I will welcome the consultation process and I hope this committee will play a very active role in it. I was very alarmed last week to see a headline in the Irish Farmers' Journal stating that penalties are up by 500% in the past three or four years. That is frightening people. It is easy to forget, given the weather we have had over the past three weeks, that farming has had its toughest 18 months, and to see a headline like that and money being taken from people is frightening. I know there is the issue of cross-compliance and so on, but a headline like that does not do any good. With a new scheme coming in, we must ensure it is farmer-friendly in terms of how one applies for it and how one stays within the guidelines. If it is too complicated, it will frustrate people and their livelihoods could be affected if they face penalties. When the new scheme is devised, it should be farmer-friendly in regard to how farmers must comply with everything. We should not get tied up in bureaucracy and red tape.