Brendan Smith (Cavan-Monaghan, Fianna Fail)

It would be well known that the 12 most recently acceded countries to the European Union have voiced strong opposition to the current system of payments. They regard the current system as being unfair to them. That is their strong view and they have been very vocal in that regard. Some of the member states that would have been supportive of the historic model in the past are not propagating its value at this time either. As I said to Deputy Sherlock earlier, the number of member states that are strong in their support of the historic model is small, unfortunately.

See this speech in context