Paul Daly (Fianna Fail) | Oireachtas source

I welcome the witnesses from the farmer representative bodies. As the Chairman rightly says, we have many witnesses and members in attendance, so time is of the essence. I will not take much time. While I have no specific question, I would like to hear from the different organisations, in advance of our meeting with the Department later, if there is one thing that we could leave this meeting with that witnesses want us to get across to the Department in our deliberations with it later. Reading the submissions, there is a common denominator in all three, which, as a farmer myself, I and members of the committee were probably well aware of before we read the submissions.

Regarding the new Common Agricultural Policy, CAP, and the genuine farmer, the issue of capping and convergence seems to be coming to the fore in all the submissions. I reiterate the organisations should give a brief couple of lines on each of those issues that they would like us to bring forward in our deliberations when it gets closer to D-Day.

From reading the submissions, there is a slight difference of opinion between the different organisations on the good agricultural environment conditions. That may possibly emanate from the different sectors that are their core membership or the different geographical areas they represent. I would like to get a little more depth as to their stance on the good agricultural environment conditions with regard to high carbon soils and where they would like to see this evolving.