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

That is a fair question. The priority categories will be new entrants and young farmers who will receive top-ups on their entitlements up to the average figure before they then receive the 25% additional top-up under a separate scheme for young farmers. People will be entering farming for the first time without entitlements or payments. They will be buying or taking out long-term leases on land without entitlements. They will have to be able to apply to receive some entitlement. Once the priority categories are funded through the national reserve, we will examine the old-young farmer category as the next priority. There should be enough money in the national reserve to do this. They will be paid on the basis of up to 90 entitlements, that is, 90 hectares, a decent sized farm by any standard. We do not want people with huge holdings to have a significant bump in their entitlements, but eligible farmers will be receiving payments to push up their entitlements to the national average. It is possible that the national reserve could run out of money, but we have made our calculations on the basis that it will not. If we do run out of money, we will have to consider how we might change the allocation process to use the money we have available to best effect, whether by reducing the area involved or changing the qualifying criteria. We will negotiate with the farming organisations and other stakeholders should that happen. I hope, however, that we will have enough money in the national reserve to deal with it.

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