Mr. Brendan Gleeson:

Deputy Marcella Corcoran Kennedy asked about member states' access to the crisis reserve. The difficulty is not with access but with member states not allowing it to be used. It has approximately €400 million, but whenever there has been a crisis, member states have called on the Commission to provide money from somewhere else because every member state wants to give the €400 million back to its own farmers the following year. To be frank, it has not been an effective mechanism because member states have not allowed it to be used.

The Deputy also asked about the national plan. It is a major job. We must have a detailed national plan with ex anteappraisals. We have done this before but only in respect of pillar 2. The last time, it took 18 months. We must then get our plan through the Commission. From our perspective and that of the Commission, we are concerned that, even if we were to start today - we have not - we might have a document prepared and ready within the timeframe but we would also have to get it through the Commission. Bear in mind that we would be preparing the document without the regulations. We might have a fair idea of what shape they would take, but we would be flying a little blind if we were to start today. The Commission would subsequently have to approve the documents.

There is significant simplification from the Commission's point of view, in that it wants one national plan for every member state. This was tried with rural development plans, but some federal member states constitutionally had to have a plan for each of their areas. For example, it means 16 plans from Germany and three from Belgium. The Commission had to approve more than 100 such plans. If it succeeds now, it will only have to approve 27, which should accelerate the process. Nevertheless, we are, according to the Commission, looking at a document that is "only" 300 pages long. Committee members can see that it is a large and detailed exercise.

A question was asked about the factors affecting young farmers and the difficulty every member state had in encouraging farmers. There are many elements, for example, the level of income in the sector and alternative professions.

We have to try to protect farm income. That is the number one incentive for young farmers to get into the sector. We also have to encourage education and training and we have to make farms more efficient. If young farmers are taking over economic enterprises, it will be more of an option for them. We have spoken about the genuine farmer.

On the reference years, this is something that is fairly significant in the public narrative. There is a valid point here. We decided on payments based on what happened 20 years ago. While I accept that is the case, we have moved away from that. We have been in a process of redistribution of money since 2014. By 2020 we will have moved €100 million from the highest-paid farmers to the lower-paid farmers. This regulation will continue with that process through the redistribution mechanism. There is an option in here however. We could go to a flat rate payment. It is a policy option. We could dispense with entitlements and say that every hectare of land gets the same flat rate. That is a possibility. There are pros and cons. I do not want to get into the policy debate too much but even the proposals in here will involve a significant amount of churn in funding. Money will be moving from many farmers to many other farmers. That is the reality. There will scarcely be a farmer unaffected by what is already proposed here. Moving to a flat rate would increase that churn effect. We have not modelled it. One of the things we will have to do with all of this is to come up with a few comprehensive models that show how these proposals will affect people, who will be affected, how many will be affected, what the cuts will be, and what sectors will be affected. We need to do all of that modelling.

The Chairman mentioned the idea of the productive farmer. I assume the point he was getting at is the need to encourage efficient and productive farms. That argument can also be brought to bear when it comes to reducing direct payments. There will be those who would say that a flat rate payment gives the same reward to farmers no matter how productive they are. If one looks at the profiles of farms at the moment and at where production is happening, it is still happening in the same places it was happening 20 years ago. That is the reality. I am not making an argument for or against any of these things. I am simply saying that there are options in the regulations. They are difficult because they involve moving money around. There could also be broader policy perspectives to be brought to bear such as the question of how to encourage the more productive farmers. I am not making a policy statement at all. I am just saying that option is there. Deputy McConalogue asked about getting away from entitlements and so on. That can be done under this regulation.