Ms Sharon Murphy:

With regard to Article 120, if environmental legislation is introduced elsewhere, the CSP is meant to look at whether schemes and proposals under the CSP are meeting the objectives of that legislation. That has happened already with certain legislation and we have done it, but our position on the CSP is that when farmers sign up to schemes, they need to know what they are signing up to and have certainty over the coming years. We see it as beneficial for farmers not to have changing requirements as other legislation comes through. That does not mean we will not consult with them on all the CSP changes. In the changes on GAEC, etc., we have a robust monitoring committee system with all the farm organisations on it and a wide range of other stakeholders. Any proposals we make, we talk to them through that process. We also have an informal process with a stakeholder's forum where we engage.

The Deputy mentioned GAEC 2. We have used that informal process to engage with our stakeholders on that.

On GAEC 2 itself, that was something we initially intended to bring in for 2024 and then decided we basically did not have enough time. We postponed that until 2025, which as the Deputy says, is the date in the regulation. We continue to engage with the Commission on this constantly but we engaged with our stakeholders and then we promised our stakeholders we will go back to them and engage before there is any further consideration of that. That is our commitment to them. We will be doing that.