Michael Creed (Cork North West, Fine Gael) | Oireachtas source

I will deal with the last point first. I could not agree more with the Deputy that if we want to achieve the objective by 2030, doing exactly what we are doing now will not deliver. It is an ambitious target but it is probably more doable than draining the Shannon. We have spent €5.5 billion in today's money and the plan is to spend another €1 billion between now and 2030, by which time we hope to have eliminated TB. It is not that there will be no incidence of TB but we will be below a certain threshold and thus deemed to be TB-free for the purpose of international trade, which will bring its own benefits.

I have established a working group under the chairmanship of Michael Cronin and the issues it is considering are raising the pulse rate a little bit. I have deliberately refrained from commenting on any of those issues because it is respectful to the group to allow it to bring forward its proposals. Representatives of the farming industry are also involved in it. The challenge is to step outside our comfort zone and embrace new positions on the basis that they are epidemiologically sound and based on science.

The Deputy will see that allocations this year are up, which does not reflect an increased incidence, though there is a marginal increase, so much as the fact that when a herd contracts tuberculosis now it is more costly because herds tend to be bigger. The choice is to continue plodding along at the rate we are going or to do something more radical and try to achieve our ambition by 2030. In that sense, we have to stop thinking all the time about the 3% which get TB and instead ensure the 97% do not get it, while looking after the 3%. Studies are being done about the impact on deer and we have a badger vaccination programme. We are spending an awful lot of taxpayers' money but, to make the quantum leap we need to make, we need to do different things. This committee has had interesting engagement with veterinary personnel and academia, which has been thought-provoking and challenging, but we have to be prepared to listen to different voices too, including those who might suggest doing things somewhat differently. We also need to look at international best practice and how other places have dealt with the issue.

The Deputy also asked about TAMS and the possibility of new measures. Deputy Cahill has previously referred to underpasses and they are always looked for but the scope for manoeuvre is extremely limited. Some of the early approvals under TAMS were expiring, having originally been three-year approvals. We changed the scheme to 12-month approvals, with six-month approvals for plant. The fact that the early ones were expiring gave us some wriggle room, which we used to announce that we would extend the availability of TAMS funding for solar panels in the livestock sector, which was previously confined to the intensive pig and poultry sector. This is significant and there is significant potential in it but the scope to reopen the scheme is limited as the budget is finite. It is not that extra money was made available but that some money was not being used, meaning we could include something else in the scheme.

The debate on the Common Agricultural Policy, CAP, is picking up speed and there were votes in the European Parliament yesterday and today, though I am not au faitwith the latest results. A trend is emerging towards greater convergence. There are disparities between people who get very large payments and others who get minimal payments and are forced out of farming or into part-time farming. There is now a momentum to address this. I support doing so but we need to be careful of the law of unintended consequences. Last time, people had low gross single payments but they may have received a high payment per hectare. Others had large tracts of land but got a lower payment per hectare than the average. One person may have got €300,000 and saw the amount go up while another, with a payment of €10,000, saw it go down. We need to avoid that situation.

There is an inevitability around convergence. Apart from happening internally it is, unfortunately from our point of view, happening externally, with other member states saying they want a greater share of the Common Agricultural Policy budget. This is challenging for us and that brings me to the overall point, which is that the most important challenge we face is in securing an adequate budget. We need to encourage young farmers and we do so with top-ups, TAMS, the national reserve, the tax system, stock relief and a new €25,000 credit for succession partnerships, but the best thing we can do for them is to encourage them to see a return for their commitment to the sector. The age profile in Irish agriculture shows that the youngest are in dairy while the oldest are on the beef side and that tells it all. Young people do not see the beef industry delivering for them in the long term and that is part of the challenge.

Part of that involves greater equity in the payments and convergence is part of that process.

The Deputy asked about the ANC scheme. More than 1,500 farmers covering 760 townlands have lodged appeals and the closing date is in one week. There is a very capable appeals panel in place to deal with appeals. This was a challenging exercise. It is critical that people tick the box for the ANC scheme when filling out the basic payment application form. Even if they are excluded under the current revised arrangements, they may succeed following an appeal.