Charlie McConalogue (Donegal, Fianna Fail) | Oireachtas source

As the Minister is well aware, there is grave concern among the farming community about what exactly will happen after 2020. It is clear at this stage that there is going to be a gap. The key question is whether the funding will be continued, at least at its current level, during the period until the new CAP comes into play. Many of the schemes that are paid through Pillar 2, including the areas of natural constraints scheme; the green low-carbon agri-environment scheme, which is known as GLAS; the beef data and genomics programme; and the sheep welfare scheme account for a significant part of the annual incomes of farmers. It is essential that they are not brought to a stop at the end of 2020. Farmers should not be out of pocket during 2021 while we are waiting for the new CAP to kick in. Farmers who have exited the agri-environment options scheme, AEOS, are not being facilitated by the Government in getting into the new GLAS even though it has the capacity to do so. The Minister needs to open GLAS to those farmers. In my view, every farmer deserves and is entitled to be in an environmental scheme at any stage. We need to get away from the pattern that involves farmers being unable to enter new schemes for gap periods of two or three years after these five-year agreements come to an end. It is having a massive impact on their incomes. It also goes against our ongoing work to try to ensure we meet our environmental commitments.

See this speech in context