Éamon Ó Cuív (Galway West, Fianna Fail) | Oireachtas source

Perhaps the Minister will explain them to us. It did take five months. If 30,000 farmers suddenly seek new GLAS plans the planners will have to work promptly. There are other factors which could cause delays. Time will prove me right that it will be late 2016 before the payments start to flow.

The Minister mentioned that much is in the rural development plan. Does he mean expenditure to the end of 2022? The Minister stated €260 million is available for GLAS. Does he mean for payments to the end of 2022 or 2020?

Farmers have been severely penalised because of the LPIS issue, which should not have happened because it was not the farmers' fault. They had no way of measuring with the accuracy now required. There seems to be a big issue with regard to Europe imposing penalties on Ireland which could affect the country's agriculture budget. Why did the Ministers, in the negotiation of the CAP, not revise dramatically the entire penalty regime to ensure it was not that severe on countries and individual farmers? It seems to be overly severe.