Mr. Paul Savage:

Certainly. We would be very happy to respond in writing to any questions submitted after the meeting concludes.

On the general point about payments, the disparity or divergence in the level of payments being received by different farmers and how we might address that, in terms of low payments or redistributive options available to us, we have seen an evolution on this over recent years in terms of convergence, for instance, and moving payments from some farmers to others. The motivation of the previous CAP reform was to try to achieve a greater level of fairness in the distribution of payments and to provide more consistency to the level of payments. Obviously, this resulted in a large shift of payments over the period from 2014 to 2019 from some farmers to others. There are issues around that and around those who have high-value entitlements perhaps suffering more than those with lower-value entitlements in terms of convergence. There are other anomalies within that system, which are very difficult to address. Obviously, within a large and almost one-size-fits-all convergence system, there will always be anomalies. From our perspective, however, we have to look at these things as an overall package. Direct payments are comprised of a number of different elements. There is capping, convergence and payments to young farmers. There will be the new eco scheme payments, for instance. They will come from Pillar 1. There will also be the redistributive option that is currently being discussed as part of the negotiations. All these things will have to be looked at in the round in the context of the scope we have at the end of the day to redistribute payments. We have said some of these options should be voluntary for member states in terms of a voluntary redistributive payment, for instance. However, we have to consider what the combined effects of all these things will be on payments. How do we ensure that their impact is as fair as possible, while also keeping in line with the ethos or the thrust of the regulations, which is to get a greater degree of fairness? All I will say on that is that we are doing a lot of modelling at the moment on where the current system and where convergence, capping and other elements have left us over the past five years in terms of payment distributions around the country. We are looking at the potential options or the potential impacts of things such as 75% convergence, as currently proposed in the regulations, and the impacts across different farm types and sectors. We have to do a lot more modelling in looking at the impact of that convergence but also building in some of these other elements such as redistributive payments, the initial cut from the direct payments for eco schemes etc. We are working through those elements.

Again, all that modelling cannot be finalised until we have a full picture of what the regulations and that package of direct payment measures will look like. To reassure Deputy Michael Collins, I think the overall approach here will be to try to strike the right balance in combining all those measures in order that we get a degree of fairness in the system. However, as we said the last time, when we were doing the reform for the current period, we want to try to make sure not only that there is fairness there but also that we are not causing any undue or untoward impact on those who have, for instance, invested in their farms and undertaken expansion programmes or other programmes on the ground. We want to try to strike that balance. I think we will just have to wait and see what measures are available to us on foot of the end of the negotiations and on foot of the modelling we complete. Then we will decide what the best combination is.