Denis Naughten (Roscommon-South Leitrim, Independent)
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It is important to remember the background to the sheep grasslands scheme. There was a crisis at the time, in that we were haemorrhaging ewe numbers. It is happening again. Kepak has closed its Hacketstown plant, one of the largest sheep slaughtering facilities in Europe, because the numbers are not present. Matters will worsen significantly unless we acknowledge and address the problem.

Mr. Kinsella stated the payment could be protected by returning it to €18 million. He might elaborate. In fairness, the Minister has acknowledged the difficulty. At the conference in the Hodson Bay Hotel in Athlone, he stated that he would revisit the issue. We need to work together to devise a solution that addresses the issue and ensures sheep farmers benefit directly. Surely that would involve the introduction of a mechanism whereby the top-up would occur after convergence, in that the sheep grassland scheme would be left as an add-on payment as the Minister proposed, but the convergence calculation would be made beforehand. Would this not resolve the issue for everyone, including the Minister? He has stated he will not opt for a coupled payment. I understand where he is coming from in that regard, but the beef industry has a new genomics scheme and there are other supports across the board. The sheep sector needs a specific support if we are to keep ewe numbers up, particularly in my part of the world. The last thing we want to see is more sheep slaughtering facilities being closed, as it means we will have a problem meeting our supply contracts, particularly into the French market.