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

The Deputy has raised a number of the key issues that need to be teased out. It will be mandatory under the current proposals in the context of Pillar 1 payments that the State will offer an environmental element. It will not be mandatory for farmers but it will be incumbent on the State to offer that option. That clearly implies that for those who avail of the option there will be a higher level of payment and, by implication, a lesser payment for those who do not.

The detail of the schemes themselves and how they might be constituted is something for a later date. That is why listening to all of the stakeholders is important. It is abundantly clear that the focus is on enhanced measures that deliver on the sustainability and climate change agenda, and having the Common Agricultural Policy, CAP, as one of the toolboxes available to the State to meet our targets in that regard. That is understandable and in many respects helpful to us, but the devil will be in the detail in terms of how we work out that scheme. What is clearly being said is that there is not money for nothing in the context of the next CAP in Pillar 1. It will be a high level of conditionality with an environmental condition being a significant element of it.

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