Martin Heydon (Kildare South, Fine Gael)
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I totally do. It is why it has got conflated. I am going to separate those two questions out because answering them together will only conflate it further in people's mind that we pay them extra. On nature restoration, we have said that if farmers want to manage land with a lower-intensity management approach in the future - voluntarily - we will find a way to reward them financially for doing that if that is what they wish to do. That is very different. GAEC 2 is a baseline conditionality of BISS. We had loads of baseline conditionality for previous single farm payment schemes that no longer exist. There was a time when the baseline conditionality for the single farm payment was around registering cattle and tagging. That does not exist anymore; it changed. GAEC 2 may not still be a baseline conditionality here. It is only relating to BISS. It will not impact planning permission. It does not impact anybody ploughing or doing anything else. That is all very clear. I will continue to say that. Just as ACRES is being fixed next year so that we do not have thousands of cases back here in difficulty next year, like we have now, I can assure the Deputy that I will not be in here in a year's time with the committee giving me loads of examples of farmers who have fallen foul of GAEC 2 because their day-to-day activity can continue. I can give the Deputy my word on that.