Charlie McConalogue (Donegal, Fianna Fail) | Oireachtas source

I thank Deputy Kerrane. As she knows, I have committed to supporting the group known as the forgotten farmers. I have made a clear commitment to them that I will deliver support to reflect the impact their missing out on certain payments had on their farming enterprises. This is a group of farmers whose members were under 40 in 2015 when the situation first came to light. At that point, they had already been actively farming for more than five years, meaning they were ineligible to access the national reserve in the previous CAP programme in 2015 to obtain an allocation of payment entitlements.

My Department carried out analysis on this grouping in 2015 and again in 2019 to determine the number of farmers affected and the cost of the supports required. These analyses showed that between 3,500 and 7,000 farmers could be in this category. The fact remains these farmers had met all the criteria regarding eligibility for schemes but they were unable to apply when regulations changed in 2015 regarding the maximum length of time since the farmer commenced farming.

In the 2015-2022 CAP programme, a farmer needed to hold payment entitlements to obtain the basic payment scheme payment and the associated greening payment. This payment formed the core of the Pillar 1 payments distributed to farmers annually. While some of the rules and dependencies on holding payment entitlements have changed in the new CAP we are currently in, they still form a central part of a farmer's payment in any given year.

Since this issue came to the fore back in 2015 and 2016, many of these farmers have already bought or rented entitlements, which is a key factor in eligibility for payments in the outgoing CAP programme and today. Although they now hold these entitlements, it remains that they were required to pay for them, in most instances, on the open market.

To assist these farmers, my Department developed a preliminary outline of a proposal to provide support to the forgotten farmer group. The support that was initially requested by the group was for access to the national reserve, but at this point, many of these farmers now hold entitlements already. In this regard, work continues on addressing a number of issues, such as the requirements for the type and level of supports that are required, the funding required and consistency with public expenditure and state aid considerations. I am committed to stepping this out and delivering for these farmers within the term of this Government.

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