Éamon Ó Cuív (Galway West, Fianna Fail) | Oireachtas source

A lot was said but nothing was said by the Minister. Let us go back to basics here. Originally there was no cap under the single farm payment scheme. Then the single farm payment was broken down into two payments, with 70% under the BPS and the remaining 30% under greening. As the Minister said, in the very complicated language of the reply, there was a limit placed on that of €150,000 that applied only to the 70% but not to the 30%. I have a simple question for the Minister to which I seek a simple and straightforward answer. Is the Minister in favour of capping both the basic farm payment and the greening payment? If so, what cap does he propose for the combined single farm payment and greening payment? If not, is the Minister in favour of continuing with the situation as it stands, where all of these payments are based on something that happened in 2001 that might have no relevance to the current situation of the farmer?

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