Mr. Paul Savage:

I will pick up on the comments of Senators Paul Daly and Lombard. On the overall point on the approach to the negotiations, I mentioned earlier on that the GAEC 2 text that has been agreed by the Council is the one the Council will be defending in the negotiations. We have not yet got back to that point. The Portuguese Presidency has moved away from all of these environmental matters. Once Portugal took over the Presidency in January it went to other aspects of the regulations. Under the German Presidency we had some initial contacts on some of these issues but the Portuguese have not taken that forward yet and they do not intend to do so until the next stage of the negotiation from their perspective over the coming weeks. We have not yet seen any detailed engagement between Parliament and Council on some of these issues. In that respect, it will be a case of waiting to see what happens with the text but from our perspective we will still be reflecting on how we set the standard for GAEC 2 in a way that provides the flexibility to build on that through eco schemes and Pillar 2 measures that I mentioned earlier.

Senator Lombard was talking about soil types and he picked up on Senator Paul Daly's comments on different soil types on pieces of land that are close to each other. I take the point about needing a system that will work on the ground. We have to do our best to try to acknowledge the different types of systems that are in place. We try to make sure that the schemes we put in place are tailored to deal with the challenges that are presented by different soil types in different parts of the country and our schemes are designed in a way that we can respond as best we can. That has to be dictated by the CAP framework that we agree. That is more of a technical detail that we need to work through in some of the measures that we will eventually end up putting in place as part of the CAP strategic plan.

Senators Lombard and Paul Daly mentioned the genuine or active farmer and we are looking at this issue. It formed part of that recent consultation with stakeholders around some of these direct payment issues and we got feedback from all of the stakeholders. There was unanimity that we need a definition of a genuine or active farmer. The challenge is to try to set that in a way that is meaningful and that allows us to make payments in an accurate and proper way. We will be giving some thought to some of the options that stakeholders have put to us, including some of the options that were mentioned here in terms of activity on the ground. We would have to look at those options and then decide what is the most appropriate measure we can put in place in defining a genuine farmer. That is part of the evolution of the process over the coming weeks and months.