Simon Coveney (Cork South Central, Fine Gael) | Oireachtas source

It is also normal in multi-year schemes such as the REPS that payments are carried over from year to year. We will be trying to ensure we make significantly more REPS payments this year, including in overall value terms, than we did last year. If the Deputy is going to start quoting figures to me, I would make the point that the budget I was handed when we took over in government needed to be significantly adjusted before last year's budget because of the ceilings to which Fianna Fáil had signed up both when the Deputy was a Minister and a Fianna Fáil Member. If we had to operate under these ceilings, there would be no REPS and no AEOS.

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