Simon Coveney (Cork South Central, Fine Gael)

That is a fair question. My Department is different from many other Departments in that many of the schemes we finance are heavily co-funded by the EU. These include AEOS, which is 70% co-funded, DAS and TAM scheme in terms of rural development funding. A very significant element of our budget comes through schemes co-financed by the EU. There is also the €1.2 billion to €1.3 billion each year of direct payments which are 100% funded. These direct payments do not come under our ceilings. The issue for us is trying to manage staying within our expenditure ceiling while at the same time drawing down all the available co-funding for schemes under Pillar II money, which is under Access 1, 2 and 3. They are the schemes with which we are all very familiar, the grant aid, Leader programmes and so on. We are working carefully to ensure - as farmers would say - we do not leave any money behind in Europe. So far we have done that very successfully and obviously I am working to ensure we maximise the drawdown of EU funds. In recent months the European Commission has had a decision confirmed that allows it to increase the co-funding level of European moneys for some of the co-funding schemes by up to 85%. We need to try to work that system as best we can to make it as cost efficient for the Irish Exchequer as possible.

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