Mr. Paul Savage:

I thank the Deputy.

Regarding rural development, there was a proposal to assign some of the EAFRD to supports for dealing with the impacts of the war in Ukraine where member states had money available, but it would have involved taking money from farmers in one part of the programme and putting it into supports for Ukraine. We have a good track record over the years of fully deploying all of the rural development funds that have been available to us. That track record has continued under the current RDP. We expect to deploy all of the resources in the RDP as planned across all of the various measures. We are second of all member states in terms of the amount of money that has been utilised. We have it all committed and we want to ensure that all of the planned programmes and schemes are implemented effectively. As such, we did not believe there was any scope or capacity to take money out of those and redirect them from participating farmers to other areas. That is why the focus has been on shorter term measures in response to the war in Ukraine. I have already mentioned the fodder and tillage schemes that have been put in place. We have considered this matter in terms of trying to achieve the long-term strategic objectives through the RDP, all of the resources of which are committed – we expect those resources to be fully utilised – and then focusing on shorter term responses to the war from more current resources.

The issue of producer groups is related to GIs on Ms Robinson's side, so I might ask her to address that in a moment.

Regarding sensitive areas, the Deputy referred to the pesticides regulation. There is provision in the proposal for particular consideration of sensitive areas. That is still under discussion. A number of areas have been identified – urban areas, rural areas, Natura 2000 areas-----