Brendan Smith (Cavan-Monaghan, Fianna Fail)

It is not REPS light; it is a new scheme. As Deputy Creed will know from discussions he has had with me and the Oireachtas committee, the European Commission would not allow us to bring in a whole-farm-based scheme. In 2006, the European Court of Auditors was severely critical of agri-environment schemes in general, not just our scheme, and it stated that it was often not possible to measure what participants were doing for the money. The European Commission has been heavily influenced by the court's comments and is now insisting on schemes like the agri-environment option schemes which we are introducing in the coming weeks.

We sought to introduce a scheme which had a whole-farm approach and a basic payment but that was not agreed to by the European Commission. We then put forward to the Commission a number of measures. While it would not agree to some of them, we still have a menu of measures which farmers can opt to use.

Deputy Creed is incorrect in regard to the hectarage a farmer would need to derive the maximum benefit from the scheme. There are a number of measures for which remuneration is obtained by participating and naming the specific measures the farmer will pursue.

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