Mr. Joe Healy:

It is all about farm incomes in 2016 and the pressure they are under. We have highlighted the key aspects that could go some way towards relieving some of that pressure, namely, prompt payments of the basic payment and areas of natural constraint, ANC, schemes, as well as adequate funding for the green low-carbon agri-environment scheme, GLAS, and the genomics scheme. While I may not have been deeply involved in the IFA at the time, it along with other organisations gave a push when the suckler cow welfare scheme was replaced. It was the workings of the genomics scheme that the organisation had problems with. Those problems are based on feedback from farmers who are not happy with the new scheme. They are part of it because they have to be but there are some aspects they would like to see changed. We would also call for flexibility in the tax scheme for farmers.

I thank the committee for its questions and interest in our proposals.