Paul Daly (Fianna Fail) | Oireachtas source

I thank the departmental officials. I will be very brief. Most of what was raised in our first session that needed to be brought to this session has been raised by Deputies Fitzmaurice and Carthy. I would like to gain a little bit of an insight as to how the Department is approaching the negotiations. Based on what we have been told by the INHFA in particular, what is the viewpoint of the Department when it comes to good agricultural environmental conditions, in particular high carbon soils?

To be devil's advocate, and I do not want it to go out that I am condoning this or that I am in favour of it, if we have to go down this road somewhat, what preparation has the Department done? How will it differentiate between soils? In my area there is a lot of land with two extreme soils in the one field. The best of land backs down to a bog. In a 10-acre field there could be 8 acres of the finest agricultural soil with 2 acres down at the bottom that are well drained and getting farmed in the same way as the higher ground. How will the Department differentiate in this case? To reiterate, I am being devil's advocate. In the worst-case scenario, if farmers are not allowed claim a single payment on this type of soil what other compensation will they get? How will carbon credits, sequestration and carbon storage envisaged for the land be offset in the agriculture sector? How will Irish agriculture as a whole gain from this sacrifice, for want of a better word? How is the Department approaching this?

Another issue that came up was with regard to the discussion about convergence and the genuine farmer. Robin Hood was mentioned in the previous session. Rob the rich to pay the poor was the Robin Hood outlook. In this case, it seems we are robbing the poor to pay the rich. We also robbing the poor to pay the poor. If we go back to the reference years, where a farmer had above average payments, in particular a small farmer, that is a sign that he was an active farmer at the time. He was claiming the subsidies and schemes and he was working hard. Now he is being punished to pay his neighbour who may not have been nearly as active as a farmer. There is a major contradiction there when we talk about active farmers and convergence in the current conversation. I would like a comment on that.