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

If I could correct myself, Chairman, the new biophysical criteria for what we call the DAS but which will in future be called ANCs, must be in place by the end of 2018, so there is a bit of time, but there is a huge amount of work involved in assessing land plots. There are also many difficult decisions to be made. One of the things I hope people will welcome in terms of differentiating between the challenges faced by farmers is the new island payment, whereby farmers living on an island will get an additional €150 per forage hectare. The original recommendation to me was for much less than that, but I thought we needed to give a decent chunk of money to farmers who farm on islands, or else we will not see a new generation of farmers on these islands. For farmers who are not resident on islands but who have stock on them, there is a rate of €75 per forage hectare. We are trying to give considerable top-ups to farmers who are operating in difficult conditions in many cases on islands. It is really important that we keep farmers on islands. Otherwise we will see the vegetation there changing and they will become unfarmable if we do not keep them stocked. Whether it is the south west, the west coast, or the north-west coast - there are probably a couple on the east coast as well - this is a new departure for island farmers and it seems to have gone down well.