Mr. Aidan O'Driscoll:

They were two very comprehensive interventions. I thank the Deputies. Both mentioned Brexit, in particular the North-South dimension. The issues are complicated and stretch across a whole series of areas. We are particularly conscious that there are companies that straddle the Border and take supplies from both sides. This happens in dairy and in the movement of sheep, pigs and cattle for slaughter up and down between the two jurisdictions. A hard Border could be extremely disruptive, to put it at its mildest. We have been having detailed discussions with our colleagues in Northern Ireland and have set up a series of work streams with them to try to prepare as best we can. There is a huge amount of uncertainty. We cannot predict the exact outcome of the negotiations. Members have heard the desire on the part of both the Irish Government and the Northern Ireland Executive to ensure that there will not be a hard Border. Therefore, we have to imagine what it might mean when Brexit unfolds.

We are doing a couple of things. We have a very strong engagement with all the stakeholders, by which I mean the companies involved, the farming organisations and so on. We are co-ordinating with our agencies to provide assistance to companies which are trying to cope with the uncertainty. Bord Bia has hosted a number of seminars, particularly for the smaller companies that are most challenged. We are working with our colleagues in Northern Ireland to try to imagine our way forward under various scenarios and see how things might operate in practice. We have a very close relationship with our equivalents in Northern Ireland and this work will prove useful, regardless of what comes from it.

Deputy McConalogue asked about land eligibility and the reason for the delay, as he put it, in audits. While inspections are spread through the year, risk analysis must be done on what inspections to undertake, and this can be done only after applications come in. The level of inspections is set out very clearly in the regulation. In most cases, the level of inspection is approximately 5% for land eligibility purposes across most of the measures. To try to reduce the burden on farmers, we try to stack inspections, where we can. When we can do two inspections in a single visit, we do it. This reduces the number of inspections for eligibility purposes from approximately 17,500 to 7,500. It is a very effective way of reducing the burden. Within this are included ground inspections and remote sensing inspections.

We are also trying to ensure that once a farm has been inspected, we process it to finalisation as quickly as possible. One of the reasons for the high rate of payment and the significant increase in the rate of payment compared to recent years - higher amounts of money paid to more farmers - is the rapid processing of inspections and the results relating thereto. Claims are moving forward to approval. So far in 2016, we have paid €735 million to 113,000 farmers under the basic payment scheme, BPS. This is the latest figure. It is a 13% increase on last year. Likewise, we have paid €179 million to 84,000 farmers in the ANC scheme, which is an 8.5% increase on last year. Only four member states have paid at all. Members have heard this from the Department before, and will have to forgive my saying it again. We are so far ahead of the curve in our payments we are out of sight of all the other member states. While I realise it is no comfort to those whose payments are delayed, it must be understood that we are far ahead of others. We are processing the inspection cases as rapidly as we can in order that everybody will get paid.

The situation on slurry spreading here is pretty tricky. Slurry spreading is directly the responsibility of a different Department but I will not hide behind that because it is a major issue for farmers. If any confusion has arisen, we have said that if individual farmers have specific difficulties, particularly of an animal welfare nature arising from their inability to spread slurry, they can contact the nitrates unit of the Department and we will look into it. We expect this will arise more when animals are housed than right now. If issues arise that give rise to animal welfare concerns, we can look at it on a case-by-case basis but I do not want to make any promises here I cannot keep.

On the general issue of the slurry spreading deadlines, we have a really big challenge here. Next year we have to introduce our new nitrates action programme, which will determine the derogations we will have going forward. The nitrates action programme is renewed every four years and our 7,000 derogations are up for renewal. These derogations are extremely important to us as are the dates on which we allow slurry spreading. In recent times, there have been a number of developments that give rise to some degree of concern. The Danes have not had their derogation renewed because the Commission was not satisfied with the progress they had made on water quality. The Dutch have been told they have to reduce cow numbers as part of their renewal. I do not want to overstate this or cause any alarm but in very recent days, the EPA has issued new water quality assessment which indicates a slight decline - about 3% - in unpolluted waterways. We have some of the cleanest water in Europe so it needs to be understood that we are starting from a very good base. Nevertheless, there has been some decline in water quality. The EPA has identified agriculture as being responsible for some portion of that. In the context of all of that, we have to be very careful about slurry spreading deadlines. From a purely agricultural perspective and in the interests of the agricultural sector, given what has happened in other member states, we have to be careful here.

Beef prices is one of the main issues concerning us at the moment. As Deputy Cahill said, there has been very significant downward pressure on prices recently. Beef slaughterings are up approximately 56,000 this year to date. This tends to put downward pressure on prices. In addition, there is the movement of sterling, which also has an effect on prices. UK prices had been moving in the opposite direction but have taken a sharp downward turn in the last week or so. They are now about €3.95 per kilogram in the UK overall - slightly higher than that in Great Britain and below it in Northern Ireland. A number of factors also are at work in the background. In global markets, there has been a rise in world beef production, which is reflected in an increase in Brazil's exports and in a rise in production globally as projected by the USDA. Furthermore, as Deputy Cahill correctly says, the general expectation is there will be an increase in slaughterings in 2017 also. All of that paints a rather difficult picture.

On the positive side, Turkey has opened its market and we have seen two movements there of 1,700 cattle and then 3,300 weanlings last week with a third shipment being assembled now. The Minister is going to Algeria and Morocco in the next week or so. One objective of that mission is on the live export side. My impression at the moment is that boats are not a particular limitation. I am open to correction on that. We are always available to examine and approve boats. I am not aware that it is a particular constraint at the present time. Trade to Turkey is new. There is one exporter involved in it. It is putting some strain on the Department's systems because it is new and the cattle have to be assessed for health, quarantined, certified and so on. There are about ten assembly centres around the country being operated at the moment. It is a new burden of work for the Department but there is no hold-up there. We see some potential to further develop that market. We are also looking at other markets. It is also important to say that in recent times we have opened a large number of markets for beef around the world. It is part of a strategy of diversifying our markets as much as possible. We have always said that a single dependence on the UK was very undesirable. While the UK is and will remain one of our markets, we have opened a wide number of markets throughout the world -14 for Irish beef, four for pigmeat and four for sheepmeat. The beef markets we have opened are in Singapore, Egypt, Japan, Iran, Lebanon, Namibia, Philippines, New Caledonia, Turkey, Oman, USA, Israel, Maldives, China and Canada. We are working hard on China. The significance of this is that the best risk mitigation measure we can take in difficult market conditions is to have as many market options as we can find. That is why we have worked so hard in China and why we have worked on the USA. Our main strategy at this time is to open the live export markets, facilitate them as much as we can and then to open as many markets globally as we can. There is no point in me disguising that the movement of sterling, given that 50% of our beef goes to the UK, is very difficult. This affects products across the board, not only beef. The UK is a major importer of many of these products. Past experience suggests that we should expect some pass-through of devaluation into prices eventually. We realise we cannot depend on that.

I will move on a little bit more quickly on the other items. Deputy McConalogue asked about the RDP scheme underspend. The main point I would make is that the reason for the underspends is that we always make generous provision in the Estimates for our RDP schemes. Our RDP schemes are, almost without exception, demand-driven. If we do not make sufficient provision, we could find ourselves in a position where we run out of money, if we have very tightly estimated the amount of money required in any year. It is always a difficulty. These are multi-year schemes but we have an annual budget cycle. It is an issue that in a previous life I tried to explain to previous committees because the interaction of those two things is quite complex. It is important that we have adequate provision in the Estimate each year for our RDP schemes. That is why it is so significant that the Minister has announced we will have over €600 million for the RDP schemes in 2017, which is a record amount.

Deputies McConalogue and Cahill asked about resources for Bord Bia. If my namesake Aidan Cotter was here, I have no doubt he would tell you he could usefully spend lots more funding. I have no doubt that he could spend it usefully. We have a continual engagement with Bord Bia on the resources it uses. The Minister has indicated that in the Revised Estimates, Bord Bia will get a significantly increased allocation in 2017.

That will be used to deal with the marketing measures around Brexit. It has already announced an interesting €500,000 marketing innovation measure in recent weeks, which will assist small and medium enterprises which are struggling a little in the current circumstances. It is a good initiative and shows that quite a small amount of money can be usefully spent. We will be assessing what is required, in addition to the 2017 allocation. Brexit, unfortunately, is not a one-year affair. It will probably take a few years of uncertainty before we find our way through all this. We will be assessing what additional actions are required on foot on Brexit and we will not hesitate to knock on the door of the Department of Public Expenditure and Reform for the funding that we consider is needed.

Regarding commonage framework plans, we have introduced a measure to make it somewhat easier for advisers who are undertaking commonage framework plans under GLAS, recognising that they will have to accommodate farmers who are coming in under the third tranche of GLAS and who do not yet have their plans fully completed. We have also appointed advisers where advisers could not be found to undertake commonage framework plans. We have gone ahead and appointed advisers through Teagasc to provide that service to the farmers in those areas. Our aim, very definitely, is to ensure, as Deputy McConalogue suggested, that 2016 GLAS payments should not be delayed for the want of commonage framework plans. That is our intention.