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

I get very worried when I hear the words "pilot scheme". It seems limited, strange, complicated and worrying. I often wonder if we are going backwards or forwards. When the rural environment protection, REP, scheme, was in place and we moved on to AEOS, a person who left one REP scheme could join another. I refer in particular to those farming in areas of high nature value where much of the land is designated and who have come to depend on these schemes for their livelihoods. They were not allowed expand their flocks or herds. Will the proposed scheme be merely a limited, complicated and convoluted pilot or will it be a general scheme for farmers who have depended on these agri-environmental schemes not only to retain their farms in a good agri-environmental condition, which they must do because most of them live in designated areas, but also to put a crust on the table?

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