William Aird (Laois, Fine Gael)
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I am delighted to speak here today. I welcome the Minister. He came in at such short notice. Fair play to him. He is doing a very good job. I welcome the officials. As a farmer, I have seen huge changes down through the years.

Whatever scheme is coming out, will the Minister please make it easy for us to fill up the forms? It has been detrimental and the Department has been very difficult. It has been cruel on me as a farmer and all my colleagues in making it so difficult. The proof is that, when I started off in farming, I would have had an agricultural adviser whom I could ring for advice. Now, however, there is nothing that farmers can do on their own without having agricultural advisers and everything. Why does the Department make it so complicated? I have had a long number of years storing up this stuff and now I have the opportunity to ask on behalf of farmers. It is serious. It is not fair to farmers.

Something else I do not like is the hanging of a little carrot over us - if we do this, our single farm payment will be cut. My mother, Lord have mercy on her, would start off in September or October, or whenever she would get away it, by saying to us, "If you are bold, Santy will not be coming". That went on the whole way until after Christmas. The Department is the very same with us. The Minister is laughing, but it is not a laughing matter. An awful lot of farmers out there take huge umbrage to that, and they are right to. I am one of them. Anyway, that is enough of that for the moment.

I know that the Minister has a large task in front of him. I have said that to him publicly and privately. We have the four schemes: CAP; Mercosur; the nitrates directive; and the derogation. On a good day, we have problems with every one of them and trying to get them over the line. I accept that, but we have to ensure that we make the Minister accountable and that we try to do everything we can.

On water quality, I am a dairy farmer and the situation is improving hugely. The last two tests done by the EPA showed great results. We are on the up. We have spent hundreds of thousands of euro improving yards to improve water quality and all that, so the Minister has a good case to make there.

Regarding CAP, there is no room. I am sorry to say it, but there is zero tolerance. I do not want to put pressure on the Minister, but I had to. We want Pillar 1 and Pillar 2. The multi-annual financial framework, MFF, will not be good for the Irish farmer. It will not be good for me. If one reads into the MFF, it will not be good for Irish farmers, and the Minister knows that. I will give him all the support in that regard.

On GAEC 2, we get nervous when they start telling us what to do, which I will come to in a second. I welcome that the Minister said that there would be no fines under GAEC 2. That is what he said in his opening address, so we will hold him to that.