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

The opposite. The flat-rate payment would relatively benefit a smallholder in the west of Ireland. We must ensure greater equity. I have heard the argument advanced that the entitlement agreed almost 20 years ago should no longer be relevant but we must bear in mind that in all iterations of CAP since then, we have continued to move away from that. Under the current CAP, through convergence we will have moved over €105 million in the period up to 2020 from those with high average payments to those with low average payments. The question is whether we should throw out that system entirely or accelerate the journey towards convergence and bringing the lower payments up and the higher payments down. A lot of modelling must be done on that to ensure that we make the right decision. I am committed to ensuring that we protect the farmers for whom Deputy Martin Kenny is articulating a case for but we must be conscious that model could have unintended consequences.

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