Mr. Paul Savage:

We have said that we accept the principle of capping. As the Chairman knows, there is a proposal and there is an effective cap under the current regime. There are proposals to reduce that further under the new regime. We accept the principle that we can limit the overall payments per farmer. We have indicated that we accept the Commission's proposal to have mandatory capping in the next round of the CAP. That will be finalised partly in the context of the MFF discussions but there is a proposal to have degressivity or a reduction in payments of various orders beyond €60,000, for example. If one was between €60,000 and €70,000, one would drop by 25%. If one was between €70,000 to €85,000, there would be a further percentage and a cap can then be applied at €100,000.