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

It was said that everybody would be part of a commonage framework plan. The vast majority of commonage farmers will not necessarily be in GLAS, which will put a big cost on them that has not been the case up to now. They knew the reference area of the hill and they took the Department's reference area which they had examined and passed.

Would Mr. Dawson agree that the only fair and equitable way to make that work is to place the cost of these commonage framework plans where they should have been placed from the beginning, and where they were placed on the last occasion - that is, on the Department - and that it should pay the cost of drawing them up and advising on eligibility in terms of hectares? It could cost €600 or €700 for a farmer to get it done by a professional planner and for the planner to tell the farmer how much land he has, which he already knows because the Department has told him. In some cases, that cost would be equivalent to one year's single farm payment or basic payment.

I agree with Deputy Ferris's point that this can only be done by a working group. Leaving it to the Department has not worked and it will not work. If the Department cannot get it done by 2015 there is always 2016, 2017 or whatever year it gets it done by. That is its problem. I do not see why it should become the farmers' problem. The Department knows what it signed up to in the regulations, and has known for the past two years. The idea that it is coming forward with this problem at this stage in 2015 is bizarre. The Department officials knew there was a problem with minimum effluent because they told me that way back. If they have not got it done by now they should accept their own reference areas until they are ready, and they and nobody else should pay for the cost involved. Would Mr. Dawson agree with the thesis that the Department should commission this and get it done, that it should have a working group and that it should take whatever time the work takes, and that in the meantime, the reference area as defined on the map sent to the farmer, provided there is no change in his landholding, should be accepted as being the relevant area?