Martin Heydon (Kildare South, Fine Gael)

The Deputy can reassure his constituents in County Clare and beyond that we are doing everything in our power to maintain a ring-fenced budget with the dedicated Pillars 1 and 2 that have served us well. I cannot give any guarantee of what the outcome will look like, but I can tell the Deputy what the Government's priority is. I brought a memo to the Cabinet outlining my priorities on CAP, which was approved, so it is now the Government position. That allows me to clearly articulate it. The points I raised about why we are so afraid of moving away from that system is that it would lead to the renationalisation of agricultural funding and an undermining of the Single Market. In some instances there might be a benefit, but in general I would be very concerned about it happening. CAP has worked well for Europe. With the new priorities member states may have in defence, security, research, the environment and many other areas, we cannot lose sight of the schemes that work well. It is the key delivery of income back to the State in receipts from the EU, so it is important for our overall economy as well as for our farmers.