Mr. Paul Savage:

The rationale is that while 2% is set aside as the ceiling for young farmers, the application of that ceiling and the use of the 2% is driven by how many young farmers come into the scheme and the likely volume of top-up payments. From our perspective, to ensure that we can meet the 2% we need to acknowledge the grant supports that are available under Pillar 2 and take account of all payments to young farmers rather than only top-up payments under Pillar 1.

On national aids to Finland, I do not have the details on that to hand so, again, I will follow up with the committee on the issue. It is essentially a CMO issue. It could be wine or sectoral grant aid. I will come back to the committee on it.

On the market supports, aid to private storage, APS, intervention, Deputy Cahill mentioned the change in regard to the skimmed milk powder, SMP, price when the price was suspended for 2018-2019 and he asked whether the fact that the market recovered might influence the Commission's thinking in terms of the way forward and the market supports in the new programme. I do not think that is evident at this stage. In regard to the proposals that we have, it is clear that the intention is to continue the suite of measures that are in place in terms of market supports. The Commission has been clear in setting that out, which we welcome. There are not a lot of issues in the single common organisation of the markets, CMO, regulation for Ireland. There are not many changes that directly affect us. Our primary concern in the context of the CMO regulation is to ensure that the range of measures currently in place, including APS intervention, the provision to intervene in exceptional circumstances, continue into the future. This is the intention under the Commission's proposals. If it was influencing the Commission, we would have evidence of that by now. It is not something that we have seen as part of the negotiation process thus far. I would be confident that the range of measures as outlined in the proposal will be maintained.

Deputy Cahill also mentioned young farmers and genuine farmers. Again, we are still dealing with those issues in the context of the negotiations as they are ongoing. On young farmers, there have been various proposals from member states on this issue over the past while. Our concern from an Irish perspective is that we have as much flexibility as possible in the definition of young farmer, not just in regard to, for instance, education requirements, as is provided for in the regulation, but also in terms of the flexibility to apply other conditions. In other words, whatever we feel is appropriate in terms of training or otherwise for young farmers. This is an issue that is still in discussion in the context of the negotiations. We are not at the end of that as yet but we have made clear our view on it.

On genuine farmers, the Deputy may be aware that the proposed definition of genuine farmer does not work for us. There is also an issue in terms of, for instance, the deduction of labour costs and other aspects of it which do make sense from our point of view. We do not believe that the current definition is workable. From our perspective, we would like to have it as an optional provision for member states. This would allow member states to come up with a definition which would be based on objective criteria from a member state point of view.

On the Deputy's final comment in regard to the European Parliament and having a greater or lesser greening influence, it is not really a matter for me to comment on. On the basis of the results of the elections, there is certainly a stronger green presence in the Parliament than has been the case previously. I think it is inevitable that this will influence the direction the Parliament takes into the future, but to what extent, we will have to wait and see. It is still early days. The new Parliament convened this morning. We will have to wait and see what way the structure and the machinery of the new Parliament is put in place and what the green component of that will be. Undoubtedly, more generally, the green developments over the past while serve to heighten the fact that even within the CAP, increasing pressure and responsibility are being pushed on member states to achieve a higher level of climate ambition. This will find traction in a Parliament which has a greater green presence in it.