Michael Creed (Cork North West, Fine Gael) | Oireachtas source

The obligation as now envisaged is that the process would be completed in time for the 2018 basic payment scheme. It is 15 May this year and I think it will be around the same date next year. I am sure if the deadline remained we would have met it. As I said, in respect of the uncertainty around this, if it was possible at a European level to have an extension of the current regime for any period of time, be it a year or whatever, that would be preferable to the uncertainty that would have faced some farmers in respect of the current process. That is why we supported the current regime.

As I said, if it was the case that we were obliged to have this process concluded I am sure we would have met that deadline. It would have been reckless of us not to because not meeting it at that stage would have meant that we would have been obliged to phase out the payments on a digressive basis. We certainly were not going to go down that road. The judgment call I had to make was whether it was desirable to have an extension of the status quo. My judgment call was that for the almost 100,000 farmers who were in receipt of the payment it was preferable to the risks associated with the entire review process.

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