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

We need to be careful because we want to encourage farmers to avail of schemes such as this. The Deputy seems to be intent on talking down the achievements of the scheme, although I am not saying it is perfect, but we can learn from its imperfections when putting together its next iteration. The savings will be modest. The number of participants in the scheme has decreased from just over 29,000 to just under 25,000, but the expenditure on the scheme has not decreased pro rata. The larger farmers have tended to remain in the scheme. There may well be some savings. We recently launched new initiatives under the rural development programme, particularly in the area of solar panels, but the expenditure will not represent a significant saving. I will try to get more data for the saving for the Deputy, but it is not significant. We need to be careful not to talk down the benefits of a scheme such as this. It has been argued that it should be opened up to more applicants, but we cannot have it both ways. The scheme is delivering. As I said, it is not perfect, but we can use it as a template to make more progress.

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