Charlie McConalogue (Donegal, Fianna Fail) | Oireachtas source

In reply to Deputy Kerrane, as I say, the income averaging which is available to farmers is available in this case. The objective has been to make sure that farmers get paid as early as possible. That was not possible in December, but we are making sure that everyone will be paid by the end of this month.

As matters stand, I only have funding for 4,000 farmers this year . As the Deputy knows, I accepted all 46,000 in last year. That had not happened before, but it was important that we made that step to make sure everybody who applied could get in. That put pressure on the system and made for a great deal of extra working for the team as well. The ranking and selection was published as part of the application process. That will be used to select the 4,000 for which we have funding.

In reply to Deputy Cairns, work is being finalised in terms of the agreement dates with the farmers' charter of rights. I expect that to conclude soon. I have committed to move back to the previous dates that were in place under the previous CAP. We are now into a rinse-and-repeat process in the context of most of our schemes. However, as I say, last year we adjusted the those dates and had stuck to what some farm organisations had been advising, we would not have been able to pay the same high percentage on the date we set out. That would have been very problematic for those who would not have paid. Achieving 90% payment rates on those schemes was important. We will soon be announcing the payment schedule for all of the various schemes and working again to deliver on that. My team worked very hard last year to make sure we could deliver on the dates that were set out earlier in the year.

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