Brendan Smith (Cavan-Monaghan, Fianna Fail)

The agreed rates of additional modulation will generate approximately €120 million in total over the four years from 2009-2012 in transfers from the single farm payment to rural development. These additional funds will stay in Ireland and be passed back to Irish farmers under the rural development programme. As such, the additional modulation represents a redistribution of money from the single farm payment scheme to other farm payment schemes. As this process will involve the transfer of funds from one type of payment to another, it will be income-neutral for farmers as a whole.

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