Mr. Pat McCormack:

I stated earlier that farmers have lost out significantly as a result of not having indexation. It is critical that there is indexation for any schemes. In the late 1990s, REPS was worth £5,000. With ACRES, you have to cover a lot of ground to get €5,000. The difficulty from the perspective of the CAP funding is that we are being asked to do more. In the past round, greening was the challenge, which was overcome by the vast majority of farmers in a reasonably easy way. The grassland and tillage farmers managed that through crop rotation. The challenge this time around is that our farmers have to do something within the eco scheme to make up for some of the previous funding they would have automatically received.

The Deputy mentioned climate action. The CAP is what it is and it is limited in what it can do. We have been asked to do greening in the past and now we are being asked to do an eco scheme. To ask the CAP funding to facilitate a climate action transition is not feasible. We need to see an independent and well-funded budget put in place to fund any proposals that come from the diary, beef and lamb vision groups. There is only so far that a cap can be spread, even on a rainy day, and we are being asked to use it from head to toe.