Michael Collins (Cork South West, Independent) | Oireachtas source

A lot of the questions I wanted to raise have already been raised, which is fine. The definition of an active farmer has been raised with me quite often. As others have said, there are farmers out there who are growing corn, fodder beet, grass, maize or silage for sale. They deem themselves to be hugely important to the agriculture sector and there are concerns that they will deemed as armchair farmers, which would probably be unfair to a lot of them. The witnesses might be able to give us more clarity on that.

On the negotiations on farm payments, disadvantaged or single farm payments will be up for review. I have always fought for the small farmer, whether male or female, and those involved in family farms. Many times I have lost the fight on small farmers, some of whom only get payments of €2,000, €3,000, €4,000 or €5,000, which is an outrageous sum. It is disastrous and wipes out small farms. In some situations there are massive payments of well in excess of €100,000 made to some. How do the witnesses see that faring out?

There is another hammer blow coming with this new REP scheme with figures of €4,700 being talked about. Imagine all the payments that have to come out of that before the farmer even gets his or her hands on the few cent to put food on his or her table. Where are we going with those negotiations? I mention the farmer who is below or slightly above the threshold of 10 acres. What kind of future has he or she got or what can he or she look forward to? Can the witnesses give us some input into how that is rolling out?