Mr. Henry O'Donnell:

I will pass that question to my colleagues but I will make a number of comments first. I am heartened to hear that Deputy Cahill feels if we have land designation restrictions we should have compensation to match. It is quite a simple concept. On the face of it, what we are looking for seems very reasonable. I hope that in future we will get somewhere down that road.

On the issue of the appeals board, I agree that having a particular number of Department of Agriculture, Food and the Marine staff on it does not give a proper idea to a farmer that it is totally impartial and independent. There have been comments on the ANC payment and a huge debate. I am very glad we are here. I do not know if the debate would have been as huge if we were not here. We welcome it and are ready for it. It is very much our money and we will get it for our members. We have right and fairness on our side and we look forward to the debate.

Stocking rights on commonages were mentioned. Farmers have recently been asked to sign an interim commonage plan. Our concept of that is that it is a document that has to be signed to enable the Department of Agriculture, Food and the Marine to pay commonage farmers. We accept it for what it is. The planners doing the plans have discretion to change the stocking rights which are coming from the framework plans. I am sure in many cases they will and that is where we stand with that. Some have interim plans where the commonage management planner has put a note to say he or she does not think the current rates are correct and they may be amended whenever the plan is done. That will come with the completion of the plan.

Deputy Pringle mentioned the privately owned hill in GLAS. This is a huge issue for us. We feel it is grossly unfair that this very environmentally sensitive land is not included in an agri-environment scheme. We are coming to the conclusion that perhaps it was not included because it was felt there was no danger of that land being damaged from an environmental point of view as the farmers involved are farming it responsibly. We also feel that those farming it are in a very poor economic situation and they need support. They need access to an agri-environment scheme. That is the position with the enclosed hill land.

I do not want to sit here and say we are against tillage farmers getting into GLAS. I will put it in the context that the terms and conditions of GLAS have been amended slightly to encourage more tillage farmers. At the same time, it would appear the terms and conditions have been amended slightly to make it more difficult for commonage farmers, who have an environmental priority asset, to get in. There are farmers who have taken the initiative and taken up shares in commonages, which were dormant. They are becoming active on commonages and now we see that unless they had it on their basic payment application in 2014, they are excluded from the commonage being a priority asset. They are also excluded from any payment on that commonage. There is a provision for new entrants, which is fine, but we really do not understand why this was put in for commonage farmers. We have nothing against tillage farmers getting into GLAS. They have a big role to play in the protection of the environment as well. We welcome that but, on one hand, the terms and conditions are being adjusted to suit them and, on the other, we have seen the terms and conditions adjusted in a way that does not suit our commonage farmers so we take issue with that. Neither will probably include a huge number of farmers but there is a principle here that we feel we do not understand. That is the position on that.

I am glad to hear that Senator Conway-Walsh asked for us to be included in this discussion.