Mr. Aidan O'Driscoll:

In some cases, designations do lead to specific farming practices that the farmer can no longer pursue, but in the great majority of cases, that is not the case. There may be practices that the farmer has not pursued in the past that he would not be allowed to pursue in the future, and forestry is an example that is often quoted, because, by definition, the farmer has not done it in the past. We need to be clear on what we are talking about here.

The issue perhaps arises in regard to some of the bird designations. For example, the hen harrier designations can be over very large areas of land, as we know. Therefore, we have committed to looking at the possibilities. Nonetheless, we have not made any commitment on this other than to say that, when we have experience of operating GLAS, we will look at what cases exist where there are very large areas affected by hen harrier designation and so on that might be deemed not to be sufficiently covered by the €7,000. However, I do not want to promise anything we cannot deliver.

The GLAS programme was negotiated in great detail with the Commission and has been agreed with the Commission. There are a number of things we will look at in the future. It is possible to make amendments to the rural development programme. As we go forward, what typically happens is that we find that some measures in a rural development programme underperform while others over-perform, and one wants to reallocate money and look at new priorities that emerge. This would be among the types of issue we would look at in the future.