Mr. Colm Hayes:

I will make a couple of general points on the CAP strategic plan, on which Senator Conway-Walsh asked questions. To make one general point, nothing will be submitted to Brussels by way of a new CAP strategic plan without full consultation with anybody who is interested. It is not the case that we will go off now, write a CAP strategic plan and submit it to Brussels without any reference to what anybody on the ground thinks. I do not have details because we need to consider in more detail what formal consultation we might undertake. We are looking at different models. I will inform the joint committee as soon as we decide on what that formal consultation will look like. I return to my original point that we are constantly engaged in what could be described as informal consultation where we meet various groups which have an opinion, one way or the other, on what the next CAP might look like. That consultation remains open.

To clarify an issue on late payments, the current rural development programme and Common Agricultural Policy run until the end of 2020. The idea is that the submission of the new CAP strategic plan by 1 January this year gives the Commission time to approve it. I believe the Commission has asked for seven or eight months to do so. We would then start to implement it and hit the ground running from 1 January 2021 in as smooth a transition as is humanly possible between the two CAP programmes. That is a challenging timetable, which is all I will say on that.

As far as I am aware, none of the schemes under the rural development programme cease at the end of this year. They all run until the end of 2020. The challenge will be the transition between programmes and submitting the CAP strategic plan on time.

Senator Conway-Walsh asked about the cost of designing this. Much of the initial work, such as preparing a SWOT - strengths, weaknesses, opportunities and threats - analysis, will be done in-house. We have, as I mentioned, tendered for consultants to take up the baton in terms of designing the needs analysis. That analysis will involve taking our SWOT analysis and information on what is needed on the ground in terms of environmental measures, farm incomes, what the market is supporting and not supporting and various other factors and coming up with ideas for schemes. We expect the consultants to be appointed in mid-February and we expect them to hit the ground running at the end of February or early March. They will obviously be engaged, in a format that has yet to be decided, in consultation with stakeholders. There will be many opportunities for anybody who has a view on this matter to make an input.