Brendan Smith (Cavan-Monaghan, Fianna Fail)

Deputy Creed would rightly be complaining at Question Time if we did not send a revised rural development plan to Brussels by 15 July. That was to draw down modulated funds and unused funds that had become available to us for the first time. We do not leave one cent in Europe, we draw down every single cent. Our rural development plan consists more of Exchequer funding than European funding. Of course in the context of deciding what level of funding will be available for REPS from the Exchequer, analysis will be done on people's income and on those who will exit the scheme and may have to rely on farm assist payments. We are conscious of this.

I want to be very clear on the following point. We had to make a decision to send a revised rural development plan to Brussels by 15 July. The McCarthy report had no bearing whatsoever on decisions we made on REPS. I did not see it until it was published.

See this speech in context