Mary Coughlan (Donegal South West, Fianna Fail)

I move amendment No. 1:

To delete all words after "Dáil Éireann" and substitute the following:

"recognising the need to implement EU policies designed to ensure the development of agriculture and the agrifood sector in a sustainable and more market oriented manner, supports the Minister for Agriculture and Food in:

—seeking the early agreement of the European Commission on her proposals for major improvements to the farm waste management scheme specifically intended to assist farmers in meeting the requirements of the nitrates directive;

—working with the Minister for the Environment, Heritage and Local Government to explore with the European Commission the possibility of some changes to the European Communities (Good Agricultural Practice for the Protection of Waters) Regulations 2005 in relation to phosphorus limits on the basis of a review at present under way in Teagasc of the science underpinning these limits as well as working with him in pursuing a derogation for certain farmers;

—having secured modifications of the sugar reform proposals to take account of Irish interests which, when adopted by the Council, will be implemented in consultation with the stakeholders; and

—implementing the recommendations of the food labelling group and, in the absence of EU legislation, advancing national legislation to regulate the labelling of meat in restaurants and the catering trade and securing voluntary agreement for the implementation of origin labelling in advance of the mandatory requirement;

while at the same time ensuring the successful implementation of the most fundamental change in EU support arrangements for agriculture since the inception of the CAP, forcefully representing Irish agricultural interests in the ongoing WTO negotiations and preparing a national action plan to drive the future development of the agrifood sector in a more competitive and liberalised market."

Ba mhaith liom mo chuid ama a roinnt leis na Teachtaí Carty agus Johnny Brady.

I am delighted to have this opportunity to address issues arising for the agriculture and agrifood sector. The Irish agrifood sector is the most important and successful indigenous economic sector in this country. It is facing major change and challenge arising from a combination of factors, notably developments in EU and world trade agriculture policy, technological developments, changes in food markets and increasing trade liberalisation.

In recent years, the CAP has been fundamentally reformed and is now based firmly on the principles of sustainability and market orientation. The Irish agricultural sector showed its readiness to fully embrace the opportunities of the reformed CAP by opting for the full decoupling of direct payments.

Since assuming office as Minister for Agriculture and Food, one of my top priorities was to ensure the implementation of the decoupled single payment scheme, the most significant change to agricultural support since our accession to the European Community.

This huge task was successfully implemented when over €1 billion in single payments issued to 118,500 farmers last December meeting the target we had set ourselves of making the payments on the first possible date. By any standards, this was a major undertaking and the outcome, after painstaking preparatory work in establishing individual entitlements, was a major achievement.

Currently, total payments amount to €1,114 million with 95% of farmers paid. A number of payment runs continue to be made weekly as the more complicated files are cleared. I should add that the changeover to the single payment was undertaken while work continued on winding up existing schemes. This was but one achievement in a year marked by many.

The outcome of the negotiations on the financial perspectives was very significant in terms of the preservation of the CAP in the face of a number of powerful member states whose priorities lay elsewhere. At the December European Council, political agreement was reached on the financial perspectives for the 2007 to 2013 period. Key objectives for Ireland were the provision of adequate funding for CAP direct payments, market supports and rural development. This was achieved.

Over the seven years 2007 to 2013, Ireland will receive over €9.1 billion in CAP direct payments. Additional spending on market supports should put this figure well over €1 0.3 billion. We also secured a good outcome on EU support for rural development. We will receive an allocation of EU rural development funds on the same basis as the other EU 15 member states but we will also receive a special additional allocation of €500 million. The precise details remain to be finalised but I expect that our receipts under rural development should be in the region of €1.9 billion.

We also wanted to ensure that any deal reached would remain intact for the full seven years until 2013. While the December agreement includes a review clause under which the Commission will report in 2008-09 on both the expenditure and revenue sides of the budget, unanimity will be required for any decisions taken under this review. As far as I am concerned, the review process will not in any way prejudice the funding for CAP up to 2013. We can now plan for the future with the confidence that direct payments under the CAP are secure up to 2013 and that the EU will continue to be a strong supporter of rural development.

Earlier in 2005, agreement was reached on a new EU rural development package for the 2007 to 2013 period. This provides an excellent support framework and was particularly satisfactory in so far as forestry support and the classification of disadvantaged areas was concerned. We are now proceeding to draw up a national strategy and rural development programmes in consultation with the stakeholders.

In the ongoing negotiations on the WTO development round, we resisted pressure in the Hong Kong ministerial meeting to agree to 2010 as the end date for export refunds. A more satisfactory outcome was achieved providing for conditional agreement on the end of 2013 for elimination of all forms of export subsidies — not only refunds but also export subsidies used by non-EU countries. This gives the industry in Ireland eight years to adjust and ensures there will be a level playing field with our competitors on world markets. We also ensured that the flexibility on how to phase out export subsidies has been retained by the EU which is very important for Ireland.

In addition to these over-arching achievements the Government's proactive approached to the sector was demonstrated throughout the year in a number of areas. We negotiated a major package to deal with the overshoot of the special beef premium ceiling. The package included funding of €17.5 million benefiting some 25,000 farmers.

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