Trevor Sargent (Dublin North, Green Party)

I thank Deputy Doyle for his thoughts on the scheme. They are useful in formulating the case to be made, but we are in ongoing discussions with the Commission. As he mentioned, they are the people we are focusing on helping. The Commission has put it to us that it needs to reconcile the area issue, particularly the REPS payment area that is taken into account and the integrated administration and control system overall. To date we have said there was no problem previously in this regard. The auditors have always been satisfied that what we have done represents total compliance with the spirit of the scheme. These discussions are ongoing. There are sensitivities about the issue, given that we are putting the case that we have, as the Deputy said, operated in the spirit of the scheme and have never been found to be at fault in how we operated it. Now is the time to put forward the points the Deputy made, namely, that this model is a good way of implementing the REP scheme and it encourages the maximum take up among farmers.

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