Charlie McConalogue (Donegal, Fianna Fail) | Oireachtas source

Let me be clear on this, the Minister and his predecessor have breached their commitment to farmers to spend €1.45 billion on GLAS by the end of 2020. That is what the Minister committed to and that is what he is backing away from. The net outcome of that is that farmers and farm families will not benefit from that income because it will not be spent by 2020 and will be kicked out until after that. The reason for that is that the Minister was slow in getting the GLAS off the ground and also, because the requirements to participate in it are very restrictive, the average payment is less than what was projected. The result is that farm families are not getting what the Minister committed to. If there is to be an underspend in GLAS by the end of 2020, which clearly there will be, I remind the Minister that his Government committed to spending €1.45 billion on this programme by the end of 2020, not later than that. My position is that this has to be spent within this rural development programme. How much of that funding will not be spent by the end of the programme? I ask the Minister for an absolute commitment that if that funding is not spent by then, it will be allocated to RDP schemes within that timeframe?

See this speech in context