Mr. Aidan O'Driscoll:

They are a particular group. I agree that we have all heard from them. They are an ill-defined group but, nevertheless, our best estimate of the number of farmers that might fall into this category is about 3,900. If we were to make provision in the national reserve for all of those farmers, it would cost about €12 million. The difficulty with that is the way in which the national reserve is set up by the EU. Preference must be given first of all to young farmers and new entrants. If we wanted to deal with the forgotten farmers, we would then have to find another €12 million on top of what is spent. That would mean a further cut to everybody's payments. I realise that this group of farmers feels hard done by, but it does fall outside the conditions of the various schemes, which relate to age and the number of years that one is in control of one's farm.