Tony Killeen (Clare, Fianna Fail)

The best illustration of the commitment of the Government to ensuring that Ireland continues to benefit from the disadvantaged areas scheme is the work being done at Council level by the Minister, Deputy Brendan Smith, and departmental officials to ensure that the new criteria - there is some justification for the new criteria - are such that the reality of farming conditions in Ireland is taken fully into account. I can assure the Deputy there is an absolute commitment to the advantages that exist in terms of income to farm families - I mentioned that 100,000 Irish farm families benefit from this scheme - and to ensuring the maximum number continue to be in a position to avail of it. However, this is an EU review which many people, including many Irish people and farming organisations, consider to be long overdue. There is a very good case from an Irish perspective for bringing forward criteria which are similar or even-handed across Europe and which take account of not only regional disparities but also the reality of soil conditions, the difficulties imposed by slope and the huge difficulties imposed on Irish farmers by the high level of rainfall.

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