Martin Heydon (Kildare South, Fine Gael)
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I thank the Deputy for his points. First, he sought reassurance that the Government will have farmers' backs in the overall funding package for the CAP. Any past performance is a fair indication of future action. Previous Governments that I have been a part of have had the backs of farmers. We are currently in a CAP that is historically the best funded from an Exchequer level as well. If we look at the likes of ACRES, we see that €500 million was paid to farmers in 2023. That is a significant amount of money gone out into our rural economy, notwithstanding the challenges. I will touch on that part of the Deputy's question in a moment.

I am determined to address the simplification piece. I can see how it happens. I can see that we are trying to maximise the return of European money and the amount of money we can get for our farmers, both nationally and European-wise. Therefore, we try to meet where the money is. That is effectively what happened. We conveniently forget that when Britain left the EU, it left a 10% hole in the overall EU budget. If the Deputy remembers when Phil Hogan was the Commissioner, he will recall the predictions of doom with a 30% cut in the overall CAP. At the last minute, Mr. Hogan was able to get environmental money to top it up so it did not effectively get cut. It meant the environmental emphasis with CAP - the greening of CAP - continued apace because that is where the money came from. There is an element of having had to design our schemes to follow where the money is so that we get the money back. In some instances, we have done that well.

There are other European countries where farmers cannot access their eco schemes. They cannot draw down all their CRISS money because their member state designed it in such a complex way. We do not have that problem here. Our eco schemes are fully drawn down and accessed by our farmers, and so is the CRISS front-loading money. I do not expect this committee to focus on the things that work well. Obviously that is not the job of Opposition politicians, in particular. It is my job to defend the system. We work within the constraints we have. I can absolutely assure the Deputy that simplification is something I want to deliver in this time. First and foremost, the focus is on getting the overall package right.