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

I acknowledge both Deputies' genuine concern about how to deliver best for the beef industry. However, unfortunately there are no easy answers. Under the rural development programme, while we have reopened BDGP, we will spend all of the €300 million. Not only will we spend all the €300 million under BDGP, we will spend the entire envelope under the rural development programme. That gives rise to very interesting challenges in the context of the Deputies' proposal. There is no easy way out of this. Irrespective of whether it is €200 for every cow or the tapered programme involving the first 30 cows, it has to come from some other area of funding. If they are serious about this, they need to either identify the schemes they want to close off in order to fund it or they need to come out straight and say they want to take from the basic payments of hill sheep farmers, organic farmers-----

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