Charlie McConalogue (Donegal, Fianna Fail) | Oireachtas source

I wish to be associated with the congratulations to the Minister for Foreign Affairs and Trade, Deputy Coveney, on becoming Tánaiste, to Deputy Humphreys, on her move to the Department of Business, Enterprise and Innovation and to Deputy Madigan, on her promotion to Cabinet.

The issue I wish to raise with the Tánaiste relates to agriculture.

This is an area with which he is very familiar, given his previous stewardship of the Department of Agriculture, Food and the Marine. I am sure he is aware of the pressures on farming family incomes and the various challenges facing the sector not only because of the inclement weather over the course of the past year, with a fodder crisis facing many farmers in particular parts of the country, but also as a consequences of developments internationally, including the threat posed by the current Commission negotiations with the South American beef-producing countries in Mercosur and the very real challenges posed by Brexit.

The particular issues I wish to focus on today are the communiqué published yesterday on the post-2020 future of the Common Agricultural Policy, CAP and, second, the question of spending under the current CAP programme until 2020. Fianna Fáil very much welcomes the communiqué in many of its aspects, particularly the focus on small and medium-sized family farms and the agreement that the reduction in the maximum payment under the basic payment scheme will not happen until after 2020. However, the key focus when considering the future of CAP must be on its budget. Will the Government ensure every effort is made to protect the CAP budget post-2020, given that it makes up 75% of average Irish farm incomes? In addition, will the Government undertake to ensure direct contributions are increased in order to achieve that objective?

In regard to spending under the current CAP programme, the Government is clearly failing to live up to the promises that were made, including by the Tánaiste when he was Minister for Agriculture, Food and the Marine. During his tenure in that office, he gave a clear undertaking that €1.4 billion would be spent on the various schemes, including, for example, the green low-carbon agri-environment scheme, GLAS, an announcement that was welcomed by all the farming organisations. However, replies to parliamentary questions I have submitted in recent weeks and months indicate that by the end of 2021, when all participants in GLAS have been paid the full amounts owing to them, just over €1 billion will have been spent on the programme, which is €380 million less than what the Tánaiste, as Minister for Agriculture, Food and the Marine, promised the expenditure would be. Those outstanding moneys should be directed towards reopening GLAS, providing additional funding for the areas of natural constraint, ANC, scheme, and bringing the suckler cow payment under the beef genomics and data programme, BGDP, up to €200.

Will the Tánaiste address these two points in his reply, namely, the future of CAP funding and, second, the failure of the Government to live up to its standing commitments under the various schemes?

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