Charlie McConalogue (Donegal, Fianna Fail) | Oireachtas source

I will not get stuck into the issue of the underspend in terms of the Government's commitment. I have been very clear about the Minister following through on the Government's commitment to fund the rural development programme to the extent committed to across the various schemes when the rural development programme and the schemes were announced by the Minister's predecessor.

However, that is not the question I asked the Minister. I was concentrating specifically on the beef data and genomics programme, BDGP. I asked whether the €52 million in the Estimates, which we are discussing today, is sufficient to reopen the scheme to facilitate the 35,000 farmers committed to be facilitated within the scheme or whether additional funds would need to be found to reopen it with the inclusion of an additional 10,000 farmers.