Brendan Smith (Cavan-Monaghan, Fianna Fail)

When we succeeded last year in getting the European Commission to give approval in principle to member states having access to unused funds — we sought to have access to all the unused funds for 2009 — that was not agreed at European Union level. The only funding to which we have access is the €7 million. I was conscious that it is a relatively small amount of money. We wanted to ensure there would be no administrative costs in disbursing that money and that we would have quick and ready access to the relevant data to enable us to pay it. The easiest and most effective way of paying out that funding was on the basis of the 2007-08 sheep census. People within that category will make the appropriate application with their single-payment form. If we were to issue it on the basis of any other scheme there would be administrative costs, which would not be beneficial to the individual flock owner. I was very conscious that we needed to ensure that it went towards an economically or environmentally sensitive category. That was another consideration.

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