Mr. Paul O'Brien:

On Deputy Collins's questions, unfortunately, the two answers are "No" and "No". We have had absolutely no consultation from anybody on this and on what it is going to look like. As all of the farming organisations have said, we need an impact assessment done immediately because at this stage many of us are flying fairly blind. We are dealing with big legislation coming from Europe. We do not know how much our own Departments have fully analysed this, but most certainly the impact assessments will need to be carried out because the financial damage this could possibly do to our rural community and our farmers is absolutely appalling. That is really the most important thing from that is to say the answer is "No" and "No" unfortunately. That is something we would like clarified.

On food security, and Senator Daly's question was about food production, if we are actively being asked to reduce our agricultural production activity on a piece of ground, obviously that will have an impact on food production. This is something that we need to fully analyse. Ultimately, as an industry, 140,000 farmers are farming and are depending on their income from agriculture. If we are actively asking them to reduce farming activity, no matter what the figure will be, whether it is 10,000 farmers or 40,000 farmers, we do not know until this impact assessment is done. If we are asking them to desist from agricultural production, then the only financial mechanism that look to be in place at this moment in time is CAP funding. We are asking them to actively devalue their land as a result to receive CAP funding. That is fundamentally flawed in our view.