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

I appreciate support for this. However, by and large people who might know better than both of us would not support a coupled payment that would incentivise numbers rather than incentivise quality. I am serious about this. If the Deputy is proposing this in a rational economic way, he has to face up to the fact that there is no headroom in the rural development programme and the only way to fund it is by cutting the basic payment of other farmers and that is not feasible.

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