Ms Sharon Murphy:

The particular issues I have mentioned would be directly beneficial for farmers. While we may say that what is proposed is the start of the road, 20,000 farmers have moved out of conditionality penalties, which must be seen as a simplification for them. Another process of the new CAP, the area monitoring system, AMS, which has been described, has resulted in a sort of process whereby people can be better managed through these applications. Those kinds of practical things are beneficial.

We are a long way from discussing the details of the new CAP but as I said, the focus is on the need to keep things simple and make things clearer. We also need to ensure that farmers are involved and central to the consideration, and that they understand the debate. We work hard to try to assist farmers in the discussions of the monitoring committee and in practical ways, such as through the clinics we run when we are getting to the end of the basic income support for sustainability, BISS, process, to help them in the final stages of the application. It is important to have those structures, as well as the big political debate. We need more on-the-ground assistance for farmers and we try hard to balance that.