Mr. Flor McCarthy:

The farmers in the marginal areas I represent and me, as a farmer, are severely affected by this eligibility of ground issue. We must be allowed tolerances. It is as all the members have stated here today that no two departmental officials will arrive at the same decision and we need major tolerances. It is unacceptable that if one has 3% of a claim deemed ineligible ground involving two to three hectares, the penalty is trebled to nine hectares. If one is deemed to go over 20%, one is given a 100% penalty. What is in place cannot remain in future. We must be allowed major tolerances because we are dealing with land. We fully accept this as farmers.

I was at a meeting last night in the Cahirciveen region where there is a lot of marginal land. With the best will in the world, there could be a 10% variation on any three different planners or departmental officials. What we need here is major tolerances. As the president stated, we are filling up our area aid forms for submission by the end of May. We are the only country in Europe that has not made a decision on this eligible ground. It has to be made now. I cannot stress more strongly that we must have major tolerances. Otherwise, it will affect the farmers on the more peripheral areas, such as where Deputy Harrington comes from, and on the peninsulas, where there is marginal land. The strongest issue the committee should be pushing for with the Minister, Deputy Coveney, is major tolerances or major room for error. In any system, it will not be ideal. No matter how long we discuss this here today, we cannot come up with a clear definition of what is eligible or ineligible. What we need here - Europe will accept this - is a major margin.

Deputy Connaughton talked about lifting the designations, and the IFA fully supports him. It would be worth a significant amount of funding in the region I visited last night where farmers could plant land. The designations are denying us access to other schemes. The IFA supports this, but I do not know the likelihood of this happening with the European regulations. We fully support the lifting of designations where there is no compensation. All the farming organisations would be strongly of that view but we must also talk about something that we can achieve.

It is tolerances that we need. It is not an exact science as regards either the land that we are farming or the work of the inspectors. I have spoken to chief inspectors who have four or five men working under them. The assessment is run by little Hitlers. They cannot even control their own inspectors who work on their behalf on the ground. Their inspectors are pulling out rules and regulations.

As a farmer, I am filling up my area aid form this year when I have not got clear guidance at this stage. As our president stated, that can affect me because we will not have stacking, as we had previously. If the Department decides I have five or ten hectares of ineligible ground next year, I cannot stack my entitlements back, as I could previously. That is why this 2015 area aid form is a significant decision for every farmer. It is not acceptable to think we are within a month of the closing date and the final decisions have still not been made. The way to deal with this is to have major room for error because no person sets out to draw funding fraudulently. We have no problem with a penalty being imposed where a person does something fraudulently. However, we are talking about farmers who are doing their best in filling up forms and maybe not getting advice from professionals. Some of them are doing it on their own. One has to make allowances in all walks of life. Some of them are older farmers and one must make allowances for that.