Mr. Kenneth O'Brien:

I thank the committee for inviting us before it. We are known in the media as the forgotten farmers. I started farming in 2001, which was the last year of the reference period. From a financial point of view, I had to pay for my agricultural course and started out by leasing my land. By the time I had enough money to lease the land and pay for my agricultural course, I had fallen out of the category because I was not able to lease sufficient ground to draw down installation aid. In the following year I had land on a five-year lease but by the time I applied to the national reserve, the lease was down to four years and I fell between the stools once again. I have fought this for the last 13 years but I seem to have fallen into the cracks rather than crossing over them.

Along my journey I have fought against the big farmer who was on a single farm payment. I had 32 hectares and my overall payment was €780. I fought against that big farmer to be able to lease my land and stay in this game. I was told that we would be brought up in the subsequent round of CAP in 2013. It is now 2015 and I have been left out once again. This was an extremely difficult year. One expects things to get easier with time and effort but I am still fighting against the big fellow and now we have the new entrant with €40,000 in off-farm income and €300 per hectare. My payment equates to approximately €28 per hectare. When I tried to lease land, I was beaten from both sides because I was competing with the new entrant and the big farmer.

From meetings we have held around the country, we have discovered that a maximum of 3,800 farmers are in a similar situation. I recognise that not all of these farmers have a green certificate, and that some may meet different criteria, but all they want is to be brought to the national average - the 25% top-up and 60% into the hand. I am 33 years old. I stayed in farming, which is the backbone of rural Ireland. We lost our youth in every other walk of life. We have to do something for these farmers. We have been in this game for 13 years and it is unfair that we are being kicked to the kerb. We feel we are being discriminated against. We paid for our green certificates but the work we have done is not being acknowledged. If we get a single farm payment, we will return twice or three times the amount we receive to our local villages and towns.