Éamon Ó Cuív (Galway West, Fianna Fail) | Oireachtas source

It is interesting that the Minister of State said that total disallowances from 2002 to 2012 were €25 million, yet now, suddenly, three years into this Government, we are threatened with a fine of €181 million, which I presume the Government is going to fight. Who makes the rules under which we are being fined? The Minister for Agriculture, Food and the Marine had an opportunity during Ireland's Presidency of the Council last year to look at these rules and to change them if he had found them disproportionate, which he now seems to be indicating they are. Why did he not change the rules when he had the opportunity and try to avoid this fine? The retrospective penalties that have been imposed on farmers in the past year have been totally unreasonable. It is claimed that most farmers got it right, but the percentage of farmers who got it wrong was, on the Minister's own admission, enormous. Why did they get it wrong? It is because, particularly with smallholdings, it is virtually impossible to get it right unless one owns a satellite.

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