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

I thank Deputy McConalogue and his colleagues for tabling this motion. The number of contributors to the debate is indicative of the seriousness of the issue. The motion touches on all the challenges we face, from Mercosur to Brexit to CAP.

In addition to ensuring that the national suckler herd is supported with strong direct payments, I am also anxious to ensure that the productivity and efficiency of the suckler herd continues to improve. The better farm programme is a prime example of how supports can improve both efficiency and profitability. Results from the programme show five star or higher genetic merit suckler cows calved younger, went back in calf earlier and produced heavier weanlings, when compared to one star or low genetic merit cows. This data is not research farm data, but ICBF analysis of data from farmer participants in the programme which clearly shows the benefit in increasing the genetic merit of the national suckler herd - the key objective of the beef data and genomics programme, BDGP. Such a model of ensuring that supports drive both economic and environmental efficiency is one that, in my view, represents the best way forward for supporting our national suckler herd in the future, in line with the Food Wise strategy for the sustainable growth of the agrifood sector as a whole.

I refer to any potential additional funding over and above existing supports to suckler farmers and the only possible sources of such funding. A fully Exchequer-funded support scheme would require approval by the European Commission under state aid regulations and would need to comply with our obligations under the WTO rules. Second, while there have been calls for the use of savings within the existing rural development programme, RDP, to be used for additional supports, I wish to restate and make absolutely clear that there are no surplus funds available within the rural development programme above and beyond the funding already allocated, which has been committed to existing schemes within the rural development programme. Finally, any allocation of funding under Pillar I of the CAP would in principle have required a linear reduction of an estimated 18% to all existing farmers basis payment scheme payments for redistribution. In fact, the deadline for any such change to the Pillar I scheme in the current round has already passed.

I want to make it clear that Ireland will continue to argue for as strong a CAP budget as possible post 2020. There will be budgetary challenges however, arising not only from the United Kingdom's decision to exit the EU, but also from the need to address other EU policy challenges such as those relating to migration, security and growth. On the Taoiseach's comments, which Deputy Burke referred to earlier, in the context of funding of a CAP where he stated in the European Parliament that Ireland was open to the issue of contributing additional funds to the Common Agricultural Policy, we need to be prudent around how we prosecute this debate because it would be rather foolish of us to have our hand up early indicating a willingness to increase our contribution if the final shape of the Common Agricultural Policy meant that such increased contribution from us was being spent elsewhere rather than domestically, and we need to be careful in that issue.

The case to be made to member states and European taxpayers for a strong CAP must be based on strong public good arguments. I will continue arguing strongly that the CAP provides vital support for the rural economy and society, provides a range of environmental benefits and supports an EU farming model that supports the production of high quality, safe food on family farms.

I am committed to ensuring that suckler farmers continue to receive strong support in the next CAP post 2020. However, I am strongly of the view that any such payments should not merely be supports for the sake of supports - suckler farmers must be supported and encouraged to make the best decisions possible to improve the profitability, and the economic and environmental efficiency of their farming system.

I can assure everyone I will work hard with my European counterparts to ensure that the CAP budget post-2020 provides a solid and effective foundation for the development of the sector.

I draw all Deputies attention to the current public consultation on the future of the CAP post-2020 which is being undertaken with a view to allowing all stakeholders in the next CAP to provide their thoughts and suggestions as to how elements of the next CAP are structured. I would encourage all stakeholders within the sector to contribute to this public consultation which will be an important part of the framing of the future CAP in Ireland.

In regard to the strength of the national suckler herd, according to the CSO June livestock census figures for the years 2010 to 2017, the number of suckler cows present in the national herd has reduced from approximately 1.15 million cows to 1.08 million cows, a reduction of approximately 6%. Since the removal of milk quotas in 2015, it was anticipated by many observers there would be a substantial reduction in the national suckler herd. While there has been a movement from sucklers to dairying in traditionally strong dairy counties, the extent of the overall reduction in the size of the herd is much less than anticipated. At county level, suckler cow numbers in Galway and Mayo, the two largest counties by herd size, have reduced by only 2% and 4%, respectively, in 2017 compared to 2010. By contrast, suckler numbers in Cork, the county with the third largest suckler herd, have reduced by 15% over the same period, most likely due to competition from dairying.

This Government is committed to suckler farming and will continue to ensure appropriate supports are targeted towards suckler farmers into the future. It is a sector that makes an enormous contribution to Ireland's rural economy, and a contribution which I see at first hand on a daily basis.

I acknowledge the comments of all contributors to the motion this evening and I can reassure Deputies that we have a common goal of supporting the sustainable development of the national suckler herd into the future, particularly in the context of the Common Agricultural Policy debate, which is under way, and determining the shape of the budget post-2020.

I will deal in more detail with the issue of a €200 suckler cow payment and how this would be funded. It simply is not an option because of WTO and state aid rules to have that funded from the Exchequer. The thrust of what Deputy McConalogue is saying - we have had this debate in the Chamber on a number of occasions - is that the capacity is there if only the political will were there to redirect funding under the rural development programme to the suckler cow scheme. By way of exposing what I think is the fallacy of that argument, I would point out that in 2008 - I generally prefer to look forward rather than look backwards - when disadvantaged area payments were slashed by the Fianna Fáil Government and when installation aid was abolished, the underspend in the Department of Agriculture, Food and the Marine was €150 million. They are unconnected in many respects because the €150 million, as is the case in schemes today, was contractually committed to farmers under various schemes. The essence of the underspend argument is that somehow the Department should renege on the contractual commitments of funds under the rural development programme to the various schemes under Pillar II, be it areas of natural constraint, ANC, GLAS, knowledge transfer, beef data and genomics and targeted agricultural modernisation schemes, TAMS, or investments for various initiatives that can be drawn down under several subheads, and redirect that funding into a suckler cow scheme.

I will not do that. I will not break a contract to a farmer who is on GLAS or TAMS to shore up another payment, be it the beef data and genomics programme or any other way of getting payments to suckler farmers.

What is equally unclear from the motion is whether we are talking about a coupled payment or a payment under BDGP. It should be remembered that BDGP is about income forgone in terms of the farmer's commitment to it. Like all Administrations prior to me, I am adamant that we will not let a brown penny of EU money not be drawn down for the benefit of the Irish economy and under the rural development programme or any other heading. We have a track record, as do all other Administrations, of drawing down every last penny that is available, and we are at present in the vanguard at EU level of drawing down funding. Our drawdown at present is approximately 40% of our rural development programme. The average across the remaining member states is just north of 20%. We will draw down every last penny in funding. I reassure people that we are doing a great many things to try to support suckler farmers, and I am open, in the context of the CAP post 2020, to seeing how we can provide additional supports. However, a coupled payment will cut right across every initiative we have taken to improve the genetic merit of the herd and to liberate farmers from the compulsion to have the numbers to be able to guarantee drawdown of the payment. We liberate them from that and let them make more commercially focused decisions. However, if we introduce a coupled payment, it will undermine all the progress we have made to improve the genetic merit of the herd. This would be a huge mistake at a time when one of the biggest challenges we on the agriculture side face is to reduce our emissions.

I accept the bona fides of the motion. Everyone who has contributed to the debate wants the optimum outcome for the sector. It is a very important sector socially, in the context of family farm structure and outside the farm gate, and the processing industry and foreign earnings and so on are very important. However, we need to be honest about how we can deliver for it. The most effective way we can do so is in the context of the CAP post 2020. I am acutely aware, having attended some of the public consultations, of the strength of feeling, particularly in the west, on the redistribution requirement in respect of scarce resources. We will have to take this on board. The spirit of this debate is that this sector needs additional consideration, and I am open to that in the context of the 2020 CAP negotiations.

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