Mr. Padraic Finnegan:

I did not write down the questions, which is a problem. To clarify one point about the smaller operator who cannot, as Deputy Fitzmaurice said, qualify for both schemes, a double-funding issue was brought in from Europe in the past few years. A person cannot apply for two schemes on the same piece of ground. If a person has 60 ha of land, that has no effect at all. If a person has 20 ha of land, he or she has to choose one scheme or the other. To maximise payments, a farmer with 20 ha might decide that he will put 10 ha into the GLAS scheme. He is then left with 10 ha in the organic scheme because he cannot claim on both schemes. He still has to pay the certification bodies for the entire 20 ha, which, again, makes it far less viable for him.

For financial reasons, questions were asked about the possibility of farmers' leaving the organic scheme and concentrating on the GLAS scheme. The Department is now telling us that if an organic farmer pulls out of organic farming, he will be kicked out of the GLAS scheme as well. The Department knows what it has done. This is an attempt to trap the farmers. If there was a mass exodus from organic farming by smaller producers, it would look bad for the Department, so it has brought in this ingenious rule which provides that if a person leaves the organic farming scheme he or she will be automatically kicked out of the GLAS scheme. In the new scheme, the Department says that if a person is in organics, he or she will be given automatic entry into the GLAS scheme. It is called priority access to GLAS.