Mr. John Keane:

I thank the Deputy for the question. There is a nuance in it that has not been previously covered. I will deal with the engagement, which the Deputy is well aware of. On the draft strategic plan we saw on 8 August, the revised one we saw a number of weeks ago and the financial allocation the Minister released at the end of October, there is neither text in the draft strategic plan or a funding allocation within the funding that has been released from the Department to directly address the issue of the forgotten farmers. That is a fundamental flaw in the context of the CAP because we have seen the commitment from the Minister that they would be dealt with in the next CAP. The proposal and solution need to be in the context of the CAP because it gives certainty for five years that these farmers, who have been forgotten for 13 or 14 years, will get continuous support, whether that be to top up the low value basic entitlement they have experienced in recent years, to get access to the grant scheme at the 60% rate that they missed out on when they were young farmers or equivalent support from the installation aid that they also missed out on for that period. There are three or four different measures that are needed for those farmers and that is in the context of their peers before them receiving that support. Whatever the average of that was from a young farmers scheme point of view, from an installation aid point of view and from a national reserve point of view, that should be equitable to what is being produced now and being supplied to them. Deputy Fitzmaurice mentioned that some of those forgotten farmers may now be over the age of 40, under the age of 30 or in their early 30s. That is irrelevant because they were young farmers at the time that cohort of 3,500 of such farmers were negatively impacted by the policy change and the decisions made. Regardless of their age now, the impact was felt by them a number of years ago and they need to be dealt with as a full cohort, as opposed to divvying out and dividing them up based on their age or whatever they might be doing now. They need to be dealt with as an entire group, instead of creating differences and barriers within that cohort.