Mary Coughlan (Donegal South West, Fianna Fail)

It is terrible to be successful on occasion on this side of the House. I know the Ceann Comhairle is above politics but he would welcome that.

Deputy Breen is correct. A considerable portion of his constituency in County Clare lies in a disadvantaged area. This is a politically sensitive issue. We are currently in quite difficult negotiations on the issue. A number of my colleagues will suffer huge losses as a consequence of the re-evaluation taking place, and as the Deputy will appreciate, that is politically unacceptable to them. We are back into the melting pot. The Deputy is correct in saying that any degressivity of removal of the disadvantaged payments will have major implications. All of this depends on the financial perspectives which are to be negotiated and finalised in June. We expect this matter to be concluded by the end of June, during the negotiations at the Council of Ministers.

I agree that the issue is of major importance, and we will make every effort to ensure the outcome will not be disadvantageous to Irish farmers.

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