Michael Collins (Cork South West, Independent) | Oireachtas source

The Minister for Agriculture, Food and the Marine, Deputy McConalogue, recently launched a tender process for co-operation projects as part of the new €1.5 billion flagship agri-environmental scheme. The detail of this new scheme sets out the locations of areas for 20,000 farmers to earn the highest proposed payment, of up to €10,500, in acting for the environment. I wholeheartedly support this but I am seriously concerned because many areas of high environmental value along our coastline in west Cork are excluded from being eligible for the higher payments. Areas along the coastline such as Kinsale, Courtmacsherry, Kilbrittain, Timoleague, Ballyroe, Union Hall, Baltimore and the whole of the Mizen Head are excluded from the new payment. I have been inundated with correspondence from farmers along the coastline asking me what the Government has against the west Cork farmers exempted from this payment. Two peninsulas have been included — Sheep's Head and Beara — but all the rest have been excluded. Will the Minister for Public Expenditure and Reform meet the Minister for Agriculture, Food and the Marine to do whatever is necessary to amend the maps published by the Department of Agriculture, Food and the Marine so that they include many of the coastal areas where there are struggling farmers?

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