Simon Coveney (Cork South Central, Fine Gael) | Oireachtas source

The Minister for the Environment, Community and Local Government and I are working to ensure that we draw down all available money. We also have funding to draw down under the targeted agricultural modernisation scheme, TAMS.

As a result, we will be working to ensure that there will be full draw-down between now and the end of 2015. The Minister for the Environment, Community and Local Government, Deputy Hogan, is taking the same approach in the context of putting Leader companies under a great deal of pressure. Many Leader companies have spent only 38% or 40% of their allocations. The Minister's Department is working hard to ensure that these companies spend what they indicate they are going to spend and that there will be full draw-down. There is a great deal of work taking place in that area because, like the Senator, we want to ensure that all of the matching funding available from Brussels for us under CAP will be drawn down by the end of the period in December 2015.

In the context of the additional payments for what is referred to as high-altitude farming, I do not believe there are any mountains high enough in this country to allow anyone to qualify for such payments. Essentially, they relate to those who farm in the Alps and the Pyrenees. In fact, it is mainly the Alps and in Austria where there are land management systems in mountainous areas that are designed to retain animals on the land in order to keep vegetation down. Those involved receive very significant payments which, in some cases, greatly exceed the highest payments received by farmers in Ireland. It is unlikely that such payments would be made in respect of those who farm on the hills of Donegal.