Mr. Phil Hogan:

The European Union covers 1% of the total budget, not 99% of it. We cannot solve all the problems of the European Union through the Common Agricultural Policy. Some €400 million has been announced, which will lever €1 billion for co-operatives in order to get involved in the bio-economy. This will create a lot of jobs in rural areas if co-operatives embrace it. We did have a loan facility as well last year at 2.95% over a long period for the first time ever, leveraging the rural development funds. There are ways of doing it.

In response to Deputy Ó Cuív, we are going to continue with Leader. I never had anything against Leader but the participants needed to be more accountable. We are going to ring-fence money in our rural development programme for them, in the same way as we did in the Deputy's time.