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

The TAM scheme does not come out of the national reserve, as the reserve cannot be used for grant aid. The reserve comes under pillar 1 payments, which are direct payments entirely funded by the EU. The priority phase 1 payments from the national reserve will be to young farmers and new entrants. We will top young farmers' entitlements up to the national average and we will also pay new entrants to farming who might have naked land - that is, land without entitlements. We will put entitlements in place for them. In addition, there is a young farmer's top-up, which is 25% of the national average payment on top of the single farm payment. The Deputy is correct that the category of farmers to whom he refers has been hard done by. They missed out on installation aid and they are not categorised as young farmers. We made the case to the Commission that they were a disadvantaged group and, as a result, they can get preferential treatment through the national reserve. Their single farm payment will be topped up to bring them up to the national average, which will be welcome, because the payments to many of them are well below the national average. We worked hard to get this across the line and the Commission accepted that we could make an exception for that group and that we could accept that they were disadvantaged.

However, the TAM scheme is different. It comes out of rural development programme money, which is 54% co-funded by the EU.

Extra grant aid - the figure of 60% - can only go to young farmers who are categorised as such under the definition. We are doing something for other farmers through the national reserve, but it took us a long time to find a way to do this. Under the rural development programme, if someone is not a young farmer, he or she cannot receive 60% grant aid.

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