Mr. Tom Dawson:

I agree with what our president, Mr. Downey, said that 2015 is a critical year in terms of farmers, and also our members on behalf of farmers, making applications under the various schemes. My colleagues outlined some of the possible solutions we believe are reasonable and workable but we are at the eleventh hour on some of the issues and there is a huge time constraint in terms of getting these issues worked out.

I agree with Deputy Ó Cuív whereby, as Mr. Dolan said also, the reference area could be utilised in the interim until these commonage framework plans and plans for marginal areas can be adopted. The biggest issue, however, and Deputy Kyne mentioned it earlier, is that assessing eligibility of land is subjective. Mr. McCarthy, Mr. Carroll and myself could go out and assess land differently and the only way of addressing that is through this working group whereby Department inspectors, our members and advisers, and the former organisations also can be involved. In that way everybody will know we are all singing off the same hymn sheet, which is critical. Our members go out and do a professional job for our clients and give them the best advice possible, but we cannot do that with one hand tied behind our backs.

That is the way we are operating at the moment because we do not have the full information from the Department.

Deputy Harrington asked a question about advisers outside our association. There are a number of advisers outside our association. We represent approximately one third of advisers on the ground. Teagasc has another third and a little less than a third operate outside our membership. In my view, those advisers outside our association are probably at a little disadvantage in that they may not have access to the full range of knowledge, in addition to the fact that they are stand-alone operatives and they cannot pick up a phone to a colleague at an early stage. However, they are professional people at the same time.

In response to Deputy Fitzmaurice's question on GLAS, the feedback we are getting from our members is that while they welcome GLAS it does not suit the majority of what would have been regarded as traditional REPS farmers. Farmers are interested in the scheme but have difficulty with it because of the way the scheme is structured. That is predominantly because of what the online system can cater for, in that it would seem to me that the scheme is built around the system rather than the other way around in terms of the splitting of parcels and not being able to combine a number of actions. As a result, GLAS, by and large, does not suit the traditional REPS farmer. It suits any farmers who have environmental assets such as commonage or hen harrier schemes but it does not suit many farmers.

In summary, we are there on the ground to help farmers and to advise them on how to submit applications for the various schemes. We act professionally and wish to continue to do so, but we need to do it with the full knowledge and co-operation of the Department on the implementation of the schemes and to give the farmers the best possible advice.