Michael Colreavy (Sligo-North Leitrim, Sinn Fein)

I apologise to the Minister as I missed the beginning of his address. It is one of those days.

I described the rumoured proposals which emanated on CAP reform as "steady as she goes" rather than ambitious or challenging and this has been confirmed. After months of speculation and leaked documents, I welcome the fact the Commission has produced a set of formal legislative proposals for the reform of the CAP. It will provide a firm basis for debate and negotiation. Very extensive documentation exists and we will need time to study, analyse and debate it and for the Government to negotiate it. It is already clear that a few key areas require greater analysis and discussion. These are the size of the CAP budget, the distribution among the member states, the distribution within member states, the future basis for payments to farmers, the greening of Pillar 1 and regional flexibility and simplification.

As I make my comments I am conscious I have two responsibilities. I will seek to protect and promote the livelihoods and interests of mainly small farmers in designated disadvantaged areas in the west, the north-west and the Border counties. I also recognise the national agri-food plan, Food Harvest 2020, will be significantly impacted for better or worse by how well or badly the draft proposals are finally agreed and implemented.

I would like to have seen a larger CAP budget. The EU speaks about the absolute need for food security but does not translate this into tangible outputs. Recently, I stated at a meeting I would like to see an EU equivalent of Food Harvest 2020 whereby the EU sets out a food security strategy for the next decade. However, we do not appear to have this. The Minister and the Department must fight very hard to prevent any reductions in the CAP budget and to ensure a significant increase in the rural development budget allocation because we should have good grounds for improvement on this.

With regard to the distribution of payments to farmers, there appears to be a growing realisation that there will be a move away from historically-based payments towards a flat rate regime at regional level. However, we must ensure changes made do not damage either farmers or the targets we have set out in Food Harvest 2020. At a minimum, we should seek a smooth and gradual transition over a period of years, because these proposals have the potential to introduce a significant step change in the first years of the new regime.

The base year of the proposal is 2014 but this is counterbalanced by the requirement to have a payment in 2011. This leaves the door open for grant aid by size of cheque-book and we simply cannot accept this. We must also consider carefully the definition of "working farmers" and we must ensure it deals with small farmers in the west, north-west and Border counties whose holdings are not large enough to employ somebody. While the employment initiative in the proposals is welcome it would be wrong to penalise farmers whose holdings are too small to permit them to employ somebody. I hope we do not see one good measure being paid for by introducing bad measures for farmers who cannot economically afford to employ workers.

I am extremely disappointed the quota for dairy milk has not been lifted and that farmers in Ireland still face a superlevy. We have the ridiculous situation whereby creameries in the Twenty-six Counties cannot buy milk from farmers in the Twenty-six Counties who have milk available, but have to purchase in the Six Counties while people in the Six Counties cannot purchase from the Twenty-six Counties. It is a ludicrous situation. There is no need for the quota. It is accepted that it is obsolete and should have been lifted. We must return to negotiating this.

I have serious concerns about the proposals for greening Pillar 1 because they may have a negative impact on the competitiveness of our agricultural industry. They also have the potential, despite what is stated about simplifying and streamlining, to increase bureaucracy and the administrative burden on farmers. I am also concerned about how tangible the benefits of these measures will be. We need much discussion and debate on these areas.

The Commission has brought forward proposals to confine support to active farmers and I welcome this. For some time I have called for this and most people will have sympathy with this objective. The reason for the existence of the CAP should be to support farmers. We need an effective and workable definition of what is an "active farmer" in the context of a decoupled support regime. I have doubts that the proposed test, which is based on CAP receipts and other income, will be effective and workable. We do not want to fall into an administrative quagmire or to distort or disrupt the conacre market and the availability of land to farm businesses.

I am reasonably heartened by the proposals on regional flexibility because member states should have the flexibility to tailor their environment and industries to their requirements. However, it must be strongly negotiated and we should end up with something workable which ensures the maximum possible degree of national flexibility.

With regard to rural development, I very much welcome the Commission's increased focus on improving competitiveness in the food chain and on promoting investment in research and development. We should be in pole position on this but there is probably much preparatory work to be done. Given the size of the industry, the people employed in it and our previous experience in research and development we should put together a very tight package of proposals on this.

We should be the first to bring those proposals to the EU.

What can one say about simplification? The proposal is for the regulations to be simplified and for less bureaucracy. However, the detail of the content seems to indicate otherwise and this will require further examination to ensure farmers will not have to deal with another layer of bureaucracy.

The proposals are just that and they have to be agreed. There needs to be widespread public discussion with the key stakeholders and we all need to be informed before the specific case for Ireland is argued with the Commission.

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