Mr. Tim Cullinan:

I will comment on how the funds are distributed. If we look within the EU, 80% of the money goes to 20% of the recipients. In Ireland, 56% of the money goes to 20% of the recipients so we have a far fairer way of distributing the funding here. We all know there are concerns and issues around that and the issue can be divisive.

This is a fundamental change we are all going through and there are two points to make on it. We have the green deal, biodiversity, the farm-to-fork strategy and all of that. Those measures are fine and we all want to support measures around climate change, as farmers have been doing for years, particularly in taking methane out of the atmosphere and into our hedgerows, grasslands and trees. That has been done and we need a proper measurement of that. That is one point.

We also need a fairer distribution of the money. We all understand that is what we need to do. However, the funding has changed from farmers being rewarded for producing good quality food to carry out environmental measures. What has happened is we have had a massive reduction in the budget from 50% of the multi-annual financial framework, MFF, a number of years ago to 30% of the MFF now. This is the fundamental problem we have. There is not enough money coming in and it is difficult for us as leaders and farmers. The Government needs to ensure we get the maximum co-financing. Other speakers mentioned the €1.5 billion. This funding has to be directed at farmers and the Government has a responsibility to do this.

Senator Boyhan mentioned employment law and that was not picked up. That is something that is in the social aspect of this reform as well. It is about conditions around people being employed on farms. We have the Workplace Relations Commission, WRC, which deals with that and we also have the Health and Safety Authority. It is not as big an issue in Ireland as it is across the EU and there is regulation around that already. We do not want double regulation coming off this reform.