Luke Flanagan (Roscommon-South Leitrim, Independent) | Oireachtas source

One of the biggest feathers in the cap of europhiles when they tell me the wonderful benefits of being a member of the EU is that farmers in the country got much money through the Common Agricultural Policy but the average and ordinary citizen knows who got this, as it was the rancher rather than the ordinary farmer. Under the old Common Agricultural Policy, which is still in place, the top 2,000 farmers got over €150 million but the bottom 52,000 farmers got €125 million. This is socialism for the rich, as it cannot really be called anything else, but the Government is standing by it.

I understand the Government is moving in the right direction through an idea called "approximation", and there have been many reports in the press about how the small farmer is getting more money. Of course they are getting more money, as if they were to get a cent more, such a statement would be correct, and that is pretty much all they are getting. Under the new system, the top 2,000 farmers will get €135 million and the bottom 52,000 farmers will get in the region of €140 million. That is hardly a sea change. The EU agricultural Commissioner, Mr. Cioloş, has a proposal and under his "flattened" system, payments to farmers in Mayo, for example, would increase by €30 million. Under the system being backed by the Government, they will only increase by €4 million.

With regard to individual farmers, we have heard that small farmers will get more, but how much more will that be? A farmer on €36 per hectare will see a rise to €149 per hectare, and this is good news. The farmer on €643 per hectare will be reduced to €543. That does not change the position we have now, and which will exist in future, whereby a small farmer in Mayo will get €390 less per hectare than a rich farmer in Kilkenny. On top of that, we have the greening scandal, with a third of the payment going to environmental factors.

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