Tom Barry (Cork East, Fine Gael)
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I welcome the witnesses. In respect of their figures, they mention a total production of 56,000 tonnes, 45,000 tonnes of which are exported. On the next page, they state that land consumption and the domestic market accounts for 16,500 tonnes so I am missing 5,500 tonnes, which is an error of about 10%. Could the witnesses explain that?

Could the witnesses give some numbers relating to what they ask for? There are some of us who are losing out dramatically - over 30% of our single farm payment. This is being moved across to parts of the country that do not have payments, correctly so because it is balancing it out and possibly righting an historical wrong. It is something we find hard to swallow but we must do so. The witnesses say that people on a minimum payment need to be addressed. Should we not look at the total farm payment so that while this is an element of it, certain farmers will be receiving extra funds? I would like to see the numbers the witnesses are making the case for. If they make a case for this scheme here, is there not a case for the people who receive compensation for their beet because that was a payment over the top which included their single farm payment? Are we not opening up a can of worms? Could the witnesses back the numbers with the payments? Perhaps there are not many farmers here and perhaps there are many farmers with very little but given that we are moving such a big tranche of payments predominantly to farmers with smaller payments, are they not already being compensated?