Mr. Phil Hogan:

Deputy McConalogue mentioned the very important issues of unfair trading practices, the position of farmers, processors and retailers in the food chain and specifically, the reducing margin of profitability for producers vis-à-visthe other actors in the food chain. In that context, 20 members states have decided to take individual action themselves, which signifies very clearly that this is a real problem. We must see if, at European level, we can harmonise the rules in this area. We do not want to have unintended consequences of distortions of competition, particularly as they would affect border areas. The UK model is quite interesting. We have had a number of hearings in the European Parliament on what is the best model to use. These ideas are feeding into the agri-market task force which is chaired by the former Dutch Minister for Agriculture, Professor Cees Veerman. That task force will report in the middle of November and will make recommendations. Those recommendations will be both interesting and important in terms of whether we will have an EU-wide legislative framework. There may be recommendations with regard to changes in contract law and with regard to transparency issues. I look forward to that report and this area is one that will be high on my political list for 2017.

The Cork 2.0 declaration on rural areas was a successful conference. Out of the conference will come an action plan from the Commission and this will feed in to the next reform proposals post 2020. The work will start in 2017. It was a timely conference and was well attended too. It is not every day that we get farmers, people in the environment area and politicians going into a room and coming out with an agreement. It was an interesting development in that respect as well.

Senator Lombard and Senator Paul Daly referred to the tillage crisis. I note that €4 million has been provided by the Minister for Agriculture, Food and the Marine to leverage part of the money for the €150 million loan scheme he is introducing. The proposal has now been submitted to the Commission for approval under the rural development programme. We are analysing the information we have received from the Irish Government at the moment. I hope to have an early conclusion of the discussions with a view to having some money provided from this fund for the hard-pressed tillage sector as soon as possible. There is no other proposal on the table - this is the proposal we are working with.