Mr. Kevin Kinsella:

To respond to Deputy Martin Kenny and the Chairman, the IFA has never said it wants €200 per cow and that suckler farmers would not do anything for that money. Certain conditions attach to direct payments. We have always advocated for cross-compliance of good farming and agriculture conditions. We always meet those conditions and farmers are prepared to meet them. There are other issues, as Deputy Kenny says, that farmers face. In the current scheme under which €40 per cow is provided - the pilot scheme the Minister introduced this year - there is a requirement to weigh the cows and calves. We have met the Department about this and Mr. Woods has addressed it. While the IFA wants to keep the work involved to a minimum, we did not tell the Department we wanted €40 per cow and that we would not do anything for it.

I want to clarify the issue relating to payment of CAP and national resources because there has been considerable misinformation about this. The IFA has never suggested that we take one penny from any other farmer to make an additional payment to suckler cow farmers. The Minister and others keep asking where we will get the money and who we will take it from. We never suggested at any stage that we should take one penny from any other farmer. We made two suggestions. We need additional national resources to make additional payments for suckler cows. In the context of the CAP, we have been clear all along that any targeted payments for suckler cows should come from CAP Pillar 2 schemes. Those schemes do not involve having any negative impact on the basic payment to farmers. We have been crystal clear about that. Some people have tried to confuse the issue by suggesting we are trying to take payments from farmers. We want to nail that myth on the head today because that is not the case. We are talking about targeted Pillar 2 payments under a targeted scheme for suckler farmers. There are two methods of funding under that. There is CAP Pillar 2 funding and there are additional national resources.

Confusion has been brought into this by people who do not want to do certain things. We have discussed this at the highest level in the European Commission and it has been explained to us that we are short only resources in terms of trying to make an additional payment of €200 for suckler cows. If the committee backs the campaign for resources and €200 per suckler cow, which I understand it does, that would be a great help in getting additional national resources. It requires a combination of national resources and CAP Pillar 2 funding.