Mr. Pat McCormack:

I spoke about new entrants and an exit mechanism for the older farmer. New entrants always cite the issue of land availability as prohibiting them from starting out, be it through a long-term lease or the inheritance of a farm. The retirement schemes of the late 1990s were very efficient and successful in transferring land from one generation to the next via long-term leasing or on a permanent basis.

Regarding the redistribution model, the Deputy spoke about the payment per hectare being a crude method. While it has merits, the national envelope ideally needs to be taken into account. I say that unashamedly. If we are to protect family farm structures, some of which are hanging on by a thread, including in the dairy sector, we need to take into account the overall payment. There is no point in a family farm with a single farm payment of €8,000 to €16,000, €10,000 to €20,000 or whatever the case may be losing substantial sums of money to beneficiaries whose lands may be let. In other times, we often sat across the table from politicians in Brussels talking about the active farmer, but none of us succeeded in clinching the deal on defining what an active farmer was. In fact, we probably made more ground on defining what it was not than on what it was. If we can get the definition of "genuine farmer" right, though, many people will be happy. I will give an extreme example. Under the convergence model, a farmer renting from a landowner who is a retired farmer could see his or her payments cut while the payments to the landowner, who is letting the land entitlements tax free, could increase if the area is below the national average. That has to be wrong. The Deputy referred to it being an historical payment and asked whether it was right to base it on activity almost 20 years ago. Is it right that there could be a beneficiary who has not farmed in the past eight, ten or 12 years and has let his or her land? It is not. That would be farcical.

Regarding the CRISS, I will hand over to my colleague, Mr. Enright, who is anxious to contribute.