Michael Creed (Cork North West, Fine Gael)
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I may have added to the confusion, but not deliberately. We need to get some things clear. The €300 million is the budget line commitment, which we are committed to ensuring over the lifetime of the rural development programme will be available under the beef data and genomics programme. It is the case - in fact a detailed analysis of the Estimates today will show that in other areas - that sometimes schemes run over the fixed term of the development programme. For example, we are still paying out under REPS 4.

Nobody is suggesting - I know that the Deputy is not - that because of late compliance issues we should say we are not paying the farmer. That is not the way the scheme works and we want to facilitate as many people as possible. What we are saying is that we had provided for greater numbers, that funding of €17 million was not drawn down because of late compliance issues and we rolled the money over. That is the reason €52 million is available in 2016. If we were to reopen the scheme to further applicants - the point made by Deputies - we would be paying them beyond the envisaged end date for the majority of schemes under the rural development programme. That is the normal provision. The Exchequer pays and the Commission makes a refund after we expend the money. We are still obtaining receipts in appropriations-in-aid from the Commission and they may well spill over. Administratively, these are never clean boxes. We will spend the sum of €300 million. The sum of €17 million was carried over because of late compliance issues. If we were to reopen the scheme - a question I was asked earlier and which is under active consideration - it would be to make sure we spent the €300 million. It is inevitable that some people will go beyond the five-year period envisaged ending in 2020. The track record of the Department, regardless of who sits in my chair, is second to none in maximising the draw-down and not leaving money behind under the rural development programme or any previous such programme. We maximise the draw-down and will do so under this scheme also. It is logical that if we were to reopen the scheme, it would run beyond 2020.