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

It does not have a significant impact on the single farm payment for this year because farmers will receive the same decoupled payment. The single farm payment will be the same but it will be applied for based on a lesser hectarage. It may have an impact on redistribution or disadvantaged area scheme payments but the amount of the single farm payment will be the same. Farmers need to sit down with their planners to make an accurate assessment of their land in terms of what is farmable and what is not. That is how the Commission will audit the scheme. We are not trying to catch people out. There are not 300 inspections of commonage land.

All sorts of rumours that are not based in reality are circulating. There were some inspections and some farmers were written to on the back of inspections. The results of the inspections were expressed to the farmers and shareholders concerned. That is all that has happened. There is no agenda, apart from trying to help farmers get as much of their land back into as "farmable" a condition as possible so as to maximise the area for which we can justifiably apply for single farm payments. This is my Department's only agenda, apart from looking after commonage areas in a way that protects biodiversity, wildlife and the other sustainability issues we need to look after.

Deputy Pringle asked about CEDRA, as did a number of members. As people might remember, the Minister of State, Deputy Ann Phelan, was attached to my Department, and she has specific responsibility for CEDRA. We felt it was important that she have some budget to work with in terms of the responsibilities that are linked to my Department. She is also very much linked to the Department of the Environment, Community and Local Government. CEDRA spans a number of Departments and was specifically not about agriculture but about rural economies outside the farm gate. That was the whole point of it.

A decision was made in early 2015 that funding should be provided for the social farming across borders project, subhead A13, CEDRA rural innovation and development fund, and approximately €40,000 went into it. I suspect we may spend more money on social farming projects, which is progressive thinking whereby one would use the infrastructure of a farm and a farm family to support in work people who may have other challenges that would make it very difficult for them get into the workforce otherwise. There are some very successful social farming initiatives involving, for example, people who have challenges regarding their mental health, confidence and disabilities. I am very supportive of this and hope we will be able to put more money and resources into it.

Further proposals are being developed to achieve maximum benefit from the fund, including proposals on activating female rural farm entrepreneurship and improving agritourism options. These options are being discussed between the Department of Agriculture, Food and the Marine and the Department of the Environment, Community and Local Government and are intended to complement the work already being done under the Action Plan for Jobs 2015 on entrepreneurship and tourism. Although it is a relatively small amount of money in the bigger scheme, we will see rural projects that can help get people back to work. Another initiative I support is the concept of village markets by which we would encourage villages, towns and communities to create opportunities for buying and selling products. Such markets are also important social outlets in many small rural communities and the idea is working well. The initiatives we will be funding will be positive, and after the programme has been rolled out, the committee members will be able to judge it.

While the seafood development programme will focus on jobs, the idea that we would not upgrade and modernise our food processing facilities because we want an increased workforce would be flawed thinking. Our seafood industry competes with many other countries and we need modern processing facilities. This involves mechanisation and modern equipment from a food safety and standards point of view, in terms of the quality of fish and so on. We have invested a lot of money in upgrading and expanding fish processing facilities, particularly in Donegal, and it has increased the workforce in many factories.

I reiterate to Deputy Pringle that this has happened. Most of it is about adding value to product. The Deputy is talking about factories that would have had a lot of people effectively gutting fish, much of which has been mechanised since then. That is not where most of the money has gone in recent years. Most of the money the Government has spent on the seafood processing sector has been about adding value to product, whether that is packaging, smoking or whatever. The Government deliberately has had a higher grant aid provision linked to higher value-added processing. If he wishes, I can send through the detail to Deputy Pringle as to where the Department has spent money.

The Department will continue to try to ensure that Ireland has a seafood industry that is competitive and modern, which employs as many people as possible and which gets as much fish as possible through those systems, be they from Irish trawlers or from foreign trawlers. The alternative is we simply will see more and more fish getting pumped into containers and taken to other parts of Europe for processing because we are not efficient here. The Deputy knows the fishing industry well enough to know this happens in huge volumes. The Department wishes to have more processing take place here, as well as to have more added value and jobs here, just like it has done in the agrifood sector. We do not want Ireland simply to be exporting commodities of whole fish.

In respect of subhead C7.6, on environmental compliance, my understanding is it actually pertains to research. In 2014, the subheads were used for the first time to fund preparatory work for the phased implementation of the ban on discarding fish, which formed part of the Common Fisheries Policy reform package agreed in 2013. The first part of this ban commenced on 1 January 2015 with the second and more complex phase due on 1 January 2016. The projected expenditure was based on estimates of projected data collection, research, workshops, gear trials and a range of projects to inform the development of specific proposals for actions at national, regional and EU level. In other words, this has gone from being capital expenditure to current expenditure in preparation for what will be a major challenge for the industry, for the Department and for the agencies that are working with the seafood industry to introduce a discards ban on mixed fisheries, which will be phased in over the coming years.

Ultimately, this will be a good thing for the fishing industry because it will stop the dumping of approximately 40% of the fish that are caught, but it will involve a transition and the Department must make sure that the fishermen can manage the transition properly from a financial and a management perspective. It would be great to have a detailed discussion on that challenge on another occasion because I would be very interested to get feedback from people like Deputies Pringle, Ferris and others who are interested in the seafood sector. This is something that must be done and either we find a way to do it or the Commission will enforce a way of doing it. I know which of those two options I desire.

Deputy Penrose asked about the beef genomics programme. At present, the plan is that the Department estimates it will be paying out on approximately 650,000 animals. Mr. Fintan O’Brien will correct me if I am wrong but I think that is the approximate figure. The Department wants the first ten animals in a herd to get €100 - I am referring to a calved cow in this regard - and essentially, this means approximately 290,000 of the aforementioned 650,000 animals will receive €100 per head. That is approximately half the national herd, if one likes. As the average herd size for a suckler herd is 17 animals, most farmers will have more than half of their herd getting €100 per animal. However, as the Deputy is aware, there are some major operators in the midlands who have many more animals in their herds than the national average. While they know they will get €100 for the first ten animals, they have 80 or 120 animals and they will want to know what is the story with the rest of them.