Éamon Ó Cuív (Galway West, Fianna Fail)

I see that members of the IFA are in the Gallery and they will give the Minister the facts and figures. There was never more money paid in environmental payments to farmers during any period of government than during the period of the Fianna Fáil-led Government. With the downturn in the economy we had to constrain those payments. We had a proposal which the Minister has pulled back. This was a proposal to give an extra payment for those with the greatest environmental constraints but the minute the Minister was in the door, he decided to decrease the AEOS by 25% because it was only to help small farmers in the west. His next move-----

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