Paul Daly (Fianna Fail)
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I welcome the officials from the Department and thank them for their contribution and their submission. I will be brief because, as the Chairman said, we are running low on time. I would like some comment from the Department on the number of people who might leave organics, having gone through the conversion system and got onto the scheme. I seek the figures from the Department. I have had engagements with people in the sector who when talking to me have referred to this as being somewhat of a revolving door. They say we will never reach the targets we have set or the percentages of area covered unless we can hold on to the people already on the scheme. I cannot find mention of any numbers but, as I said, people within the system have told me it is a bit of a revolving door and that they cannot hold on to what they have. In that context, they ask how we will get new people on board. That was evident, as previous speakers have highlighted, in the number of applicants the Department had. I would the Department to comment on that also. When the Department sees five times the available number of places applying for the REAP scheme, as has been said, yet the organic scheme gets only the number of applicants for which the Department has positions, a mere 500, how will we sell this? We are all on the one side here. I am not being critical. I am asking questions. They might be constructively critical. How will we get up to 7.5%? Just doing the same thing and reopening the same scheme annually does not seem to be working. What else can we do to incentivise the farming community to buy into the organic system? Even the target of 7.5% is too low. We need to aim for the higher numbers in Europe, not the average.

I will leave it at that, Chairman, because I know we have time constraints but I would like to hear some feedback as to how many people drop out and, if the number is reasonably high, why that is so.