Charlie McConalogue (Donegal, Fianna Fail) | Oireachtas source

I think that what I said was that farmers will be more advantaged by the premiums because, previously, whether you were a farmer or a non-farmer, you could get premiums for 15 years. With the new premiums which started from this month, farmers can get them for 20 years, as well as drawing down their single-farm premiums on forestry land too, whereas if you are a non-farmer you can get it for only 15 years. We are therefore advantaging farmers through the premiums by giving them one third more. Obviously, nobody is making any more land and the farmers farm the land and have family farms. Through the scheme and by advantaging farmers through the premiums we are putting in place, we are trying to encourage and to provide farmers with the opportunity, where they feel it appropriate and where they can, to incorporate some forestry into their farms. As I said earlier, the premiums for native leaf, for example, mean that over 20 years of the premiums a farmer could now get around €22,000 tax-free for planting their hectare of native trees, which I think would be very attractive to many farmers.