Mr. Bill Callanan:

However, I want to be clear that we had an issue which we moved to address in the voluntary review of derogation we did two years ago. It is out in the proposals currently to consider the management of derogation farms. What do we mean by that? In the management of derogation farms, which was over 170 kg, that was done on a whole-farm approach. We had 300-odd farms which used or included commonage land as part of their derogation so, in theory, were suggestive, on a whole-farm approach, that that land was doctored up to 250 kg, which was a nonsense. We moved to preclude that being available at stocking rates at that level. I describe it as the dilution of the stocking rate by the inclusion of marginal land. That is put out under the current proposals as well to avoid a situation of compliance through inordinate expectation on the chemical fertiliser allowance associated with this type of land, particularly commonage land, or the nitrate-carrying capacity of it because it is being calculated on a whole-farm basis. If these farms, of which I do not have the individual details, had 40 ha very heavily stocked, they could be compliant because they had 20 ha of incredibly low stocked land. I got an approach years ago from a number of farmers who wanted to avail of low-input agri-environment schemes in terms of that element and then being in derogation. I said that does not make logical sense.