Mr. Fran Morrin:

The commitment under the programme for Government was that we would seek recognition from the Commission. We did that. The funding for such a group would be what is termed funding for a specific disadvantaged group. When the CAP was introduced in 2015, we got confirmation in writing from the Commission that the member states could not use the proceeds of a linear cut to fund this specific disadvantaged category. Later, in January 2018, an omnibus regulation came in which made it possible to fund the inclusion of specific disadvantaged categories, such as these forgotten farmers, from the national reserve but only if a linear cut was required to fund the priority categories, which were the young farmers and new entrant farmers.

To date we have not needed to do a linear cut so the possibility to pay the forgotten farmer cohort has not been there.