Paul Daly (Fianna Fail) | Oireachtas source

I welcome the witnesses. I am seeking a little more clarification on some of the matters discussed. Most areas have been covered. Will this get over the line by 2020? The witnesses have outlined the current position, and if Brexit goes the way some people are predicting, we are facing the possibility of all hands being on deck both here and in Europe to deal with the issue. The elections for the European Parliament will happen in May and there is a possibility that it will be a totally different make-up from what is there now. How might it affect the sealing of the CAP before the 1 January 2020 deadline?

That is the deadline from the subsidiarity perspective, with each state lodging a strategic plan that must get Commission approval. What guidelines have been received from the Commission on writing the plan? How much freedom is there in what can be proposed from an individual state's perspective? There would have been some communication with the Commission on that, so what approach are we taking? Are we approaching this with a green jersey or in a bureaucratic fashion? Will our proposal help to simplify CAP? The word "simplification" has been used a lot, but from my experience, as has been echoed by numerous contributors, it seems that every adjustment to CAP makes it more complicated rather than simplified. From my experience, much of the complication is from our own side. I use the targeted agricultural modernisation scheme, TAMS, as an example, where we have set grant specifications from the building side and our inspection regime has really complicated the process. It prohibits a number of people from even applying, never mind being able to draw down funding. The grant specification on some of the farm buildings means a farmer could build two sheds for the price of one if he or she did not bother looking for the grant. I am wary of the subsidiarity aspect because of my experience of how we handled things on our side in the past. We have been the cause of complications at times.

We are net contributors now but there is a debate on the CAP budget being reduced. We are leading the charge around Europe that if we increase our contribution to the multi-annual financial framework, MFF, we would at least come out with a similar budget to what has gone before. I am led to believe that even if we are successful in getting other countries to agree to increase their contribution to the MFF, there is no guarantee it would go towards the CAP. We could end up paying more and, having led the charge to achieve this, other member states could get money diverted to the likes of migration and defence issues. Should we be careful what we wish for with respect to increasing contributions to the MFF? Is there any guarantee that if countries row in behind us, this will come back to the CAP budget?

If we are net contributors, would we not be better advised, as a nation, to hold our money and put it directly into Pillar 2, where we are allowed a little more freedom? We could get full value for it here rather than sending it to Brussels where it might end up in an area where we had no intention for it to go and where it would not improve the CAP. If I could get some clarification on those matters, I would be happy.