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

This is an issue. At present, the rule is that a farmer can be in only one discussion group, because otherwise he or she will receive a double payment. A discussion group involves peer discussions and strategic talk, with advisers and farmers speaking to each other about how to improve their businesses. It also involves visits to farms to develop plans to improve practice. If a farmer is in more than one discussion group, he or she will receive multiple plans on the same farm and will be paid for all of them. We are trying to get as many farmers into discussion groups as we can, and if we have a lot of farmers in two discussion groups because they happen to have a sheep operation and a beef operation, we will keep other people out. We are looking at ways to have a practical outcome that would allow farmers interested in improving beef and sheep practices, or other multiple mixed farming activities, to benefit from being in more than one discussion group in terms of upgrading their facilities or their business. We are looking at how we can facilitate this within the rules. I do not want to pay farmers twice and keep other farmers out of discussion groups who might like to be in them. There are also issues regarding whether a father and son could be in two different discussion groups. They may already be in existing discussion groups which are now becoming formal discussion groups. We certainly do not want people to have to leave a discussion group model that may have been working very well over recent years and which may not have been paid. There are some practical implementation issues in terms of the roll-out of the knowledge transfer groups, but they are sensible practical things that we are trying to overcome with the farming organisations, and I think we will be able to come up with sensible conclusions on this.

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