Mr. Tadhg Buckley:

In terms of recommendations, if you look at it from a revenue perspective, there is an income averaging principle there for farmers in terms of revenue and you can opt in to it. The reason it is there is because of the cyclical nature of farming income. Given the cyclical nature, that principle needs to be looked at when we are looking at farm assist or a form of that.

I will give another example. Take the ACRES payment. Most farmers are going to receive a double ACRES payment this year. If an accountant was doing their accounts, they could put that in 2023 as money that they are owed as a debtor, that is, money they could book in 2023 knowing that it came in 2024 because it was supposed to be paid in 2023. They could adjust the income in the accounts correctly for a double payment. There will be an issue this year where there will be farmers that are going to get two ACRES payments and therefore their gross income this year is going to have the two payments in it. Some of it will be disregarded but I am not certain if the system is designed to account for that. If it is not, then it is something that certainly needs to be looked at.