Simon Coveney (Cork South Central, Fine Gael)

This question is slightly confusing in terms of how it is worded, but I believe I know what it is getting at and I would like to bring clarity to the changes we have made to disadvantaged areas payments. It is important to say I had repeatedly stated to farmers in disadvantaged areas in the build-up to the budget that we would need to make savings from the schemes because we could not make enough savings through efficiencies in the Department. Even though the costs of running the Department and its agencies has been reduced by €18 million from last year to this year, we still had to make savings in schemes such as REPS and the disadvantaged areas scheme.

With regard to the disadvantaged areas scheme, I wanted to protect people who are farming with reasonable numbers of stock on the land. I did not want to take any money from them and in my view we have managed to achieve this. We have not touched the rate or the area of 34 hectares for which the rate can be applied. The majority of farmers in disadvantaged areas will continue to farm as they did and will continue to receive the same support they did in the past.

We changed the eligibility criteria for the disadvantaged areas scheme. This means people's stocking rate needs to be reasonable and we consulted farm organisations on this. I did not pick the figures out of thin air. We stated that instead of having to have one sheep per hectare, one must have two sheep per hectare. Anyone who knows farming will know this is still an incredibly low stocking rate. Instead of having to keep stock for three months of the year, one must keep it for six months of the year. We cannot have people buying stock for a very short period of time and putting animals on the hillside for three months just to draw down a payment.

One area of confusion arose which this question is getting at. We stated that farmers with their main holding outside of a disadvantaged area who either purchase or lease land in a disadvantaged area and draw down a payment on it will receive only a percentage of their entitlement corresponding to the percentage of the overall landholding in a disadvantaged area. However, if farmers whose main holding is in a disadvantaged area rent land outside of a disadvantaged area, they do not lose any of their payments. Farming organisations were very concerned about this issue. I do not want to discourage farmers in disadvantaged areas from trying to improve their holdings by renting or buying land in non-disadvantaged areas. These farmers' payments will not be negatively affected and it is important to clarify this.

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