Mr. Paul Savage:

I will address Deputy Martin Kenny's question on the new delivery model and whether our issues with that relate to resources. It is more about complexity than anything else. The more complex monitoring and control systems are, the more demanding of resources they will be. We do what we can with our IT support systems to support our inspection and control regimes. Our payment mechanisms are acknowledged as being among the best in the EU. We pay our farmers more quickly than most member states. We have a good record for the administration and making of payments. If, as we have been, we are presented with a performance framework and new delivery model that we feel introduces a new layer of complexity and new requirements which we would have to incorporate into the system, whatever about the question of resources, there is a question about the practicality and practicability of what is being proposed.

In many cases, it is not about the availability of resources. I mentioned the setting of annual unit amounts, but it is not certain that such a concept would even work. We do not think it would work effectively or that it would stand up to robust analysis, so we have asked for a different means of complying with the requirement to measure the impact of these things. Resources are always a part of it and we try to combine physical manpower resources with the IT systems we have put in place. However, a complex model such as this is beyond resources.

There was a question about greening. A new green architecture is proposed under the regulations, comprising three layers. A basic level of conditionality would have to be met under Pillar 1, which is for direct payments. There is also a proposal for an ecoscheme payment in Pillar 1, which would mean taking a proportion of the direct payment envelope and returning it to farmers who voluntarily decide to participate in such a scheme. An ecoscheme should have an environmental benefit above the baseline that has already been established by conditionality, and conditionality is established by good agricultural and environmental condition, GAEC, requirements. The greening components in the maintenance of grassland, crop rotation and ecological focus areas are being carried forward into the new regulations under the GAEC provisions. There are additional requirements for GAEC, and statutory management requirements are there at the moment. Together, they raise the baseline from the level of the current CAP.

Ecoschemes will add a bit more in Pillar 1. The third layer is the additional benefit from environmental schemes under Pillar 2. We have to look at what will be in there and the results will come out of the SWOT analysis, the public consultation and the needs assessment, which will happen over the next number of months. We have given thought to what the options might be. It is about striking a balance between meeting the basic level of conditionality and getting the maximum benefit by allowing the maximum number of farmers to be involved in the ecoscheme. We will try to keep it as simple as we can and to add another layer in Pillar 2 to achieve further environmental objectives. We have to think how this differentiation takes place in reality.