Matt Carthy (Cavan-Monaghan, Sinn Fein) | Oireachtas source

The Minister referred to an aspiration that the transition period will only be one year. However, almost nobody in Europe believes that there will only be one year of transition. It will potentially be much longer and run into several years so it is important that we get this transition period right. I ask the Minister to quickly identify the schemes that will be available during the transition period because farmers need to know whether or not criteria will be changed. It is also important that the Minister outlines whether he personally has plans for the convergence process during the transition period, because clarity is required. We are getting very close to the transition period so to talk about consultations at this stage without some form of assurance on the type of funding to which Deputy Ó Cuív referred would be very unfair on farmers.

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