Éamon Ó Cuív (Galway West, Fianna Fail)
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1. To ask the Minister for Agriculture, Food and the Marine the total projected spend under the 2007-13 rural development programme; the approximate spend that would occur under the rural development programme, Pillar 2, 2014-20 in the event of the Government only providing the minimum funding to drawn down the full European Union allocation; and if he will make a statement on the matter. [53198/13]

Éamon Ó Cuív (Galway West, Fianna Fail)
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I hope the Minister will answer to the point the questions I have asked today about the spend on Pillar 2 for 2007-13, and the minimum possible spend for 2014-2020, allowing for the full drawdown of EU funding.

Simon Coveney (Cork South Central, Fine Gael)
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Under the rural development programme for 2007-13, there is a total allocation of some €4.8 billion over the lifetime of the programme. Of this allocation, over €4 billion has been spent to date. The European Council agreement on the multi-annual financial framework provides some €313 million per year for the new rural development programme for the period 2014-20, or a total of €2.19 billion, for Ireland under Pillar 2 of the CAP. A general EU co-financing rate of 53% is set out in the draft rural development regulation but this rate may rise to a maximum of 80% for measures such as farm and business development, co-operation activities, and LEADER projects. Environmental type measures may be co-funded up to 75%. The total Exchequer funding that will be required to draw down the available European Agricultural Fund for Rural Development funding will depend on the types of measures included in the new rural development programme and on the co-financing rates applied to these measures.

Work is currently ongoing in my Department to design the new rural development programme for the period 2014–20. In designing the new rural development programme, my Department must take account of the range of requirements set out in the draft rural development regulation and the need to support key policy aims for the agrifood sector in the light of the Food Harvest 2020 strategy. A number of ex-ante analyses are being undertaken and a public consultation process has also taken place.

If the Deputy is looking for an estimate on the minimum spend to get acceptance of a rural development programme from the Commission, I think we would have to be spending an average of about €430-450 million per year on average. That would involve providing minimum co-financing from the Exchequer for a full drawdown. I find that approach totally unacceptable and I have been working intensively with the Department of Public Expenditure and Reform for the last ten days to try to agree an approach to rural development will recognise the potential for growth and expansion in the rural, and which will give agriculture, agrifood and the rural economy the priority they deserve. However, that must happen within the context of the resources available to the Government, and I think people need to be ambitious but also realistic about what is possible.

Éamon Ó Cuív (Galway West, Fianna Fail)
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I would like to thank the Minister for confirming that under the deal he negotiated, we could see Pillar 2 drop from €4.8 billion the last time to €3.1 billion this time, which is a drop of around 47%.

Simon Coveney (Cork South Central, Fine Gael)
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I would like to make a correction. The €4.8 billion figure is the wrong figure.

Éamon Ó Cuív (Galway West, Fianna Fail)
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The Minister himself said €4.8 billion.

Michael McCarthy (Cork South West, Labour)
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It does not matter with him-----

Michael Kitt (Galway East, Fianna Fail)
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Please, Deputy Ó Cuív only has one minute.

Éamon Ó Cuív (Galway West, Fianna Fail)
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The Minister said that the programme is worth €4.8 billion.

Simon Coveney (Cork South Central, Fine Gael)
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I said that the spend to date is €4 billion.

Éamon Ó Cuív (Galway West, Fianna Fail)
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However, there is two years left to spend under this programme. The allocation for 2007-13 is €4.8 billion, and I presume that the Minister will have spent the €4.8 billion by the time we get to the end of the programme plus two years.

Simon Coveney (Cork South Central, Fine Gael)
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That is the intention.

Éamon Ó Cuív (Galway West, Fianna Fail)
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For the next programme there could again be two years added on at the end, and the spend could be as low as €3.1 billion. Will the Minister accept that it was very poor negotiation on his behalf, as President of the European Council, to allow such low co-funding from member states? This is the particularly the case when we take into account the fact that Pillar 1 is much larger and does not require any co-funding, and when we look at the multiplier effect in the rural economy of spending on agriculture.

Simon Coveney (Cork South Central, Fine Gael)
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I would not accept that thesis. Perhaps the Deputy has not noticed, but we now have 28 member states in the European Union and they all have different priorities. In order to get an agreement on the CAP, we had to take account of many of those priorities. What is different about the CAP is that member states have flexibility to design for themselves rural development programmes and take an approach to the CAP that suits their levels of ambition to support the agrifood sector in their countries. We intend on being very ambitious for our rural development programme in Ireland, while at the same time recognising that we have significant budgetary constraints, particularly in 2015 and 2016. My job is to maximise the potential and the spend, within reason, for an ambitious rural development programme that can help us to deliver on the potential of Food Harvest 2020, and to support farmers who do not have the capacity to benefit from that plan, due to the conditions under which they are farming, and so on. We will do that and within the next ten days, as long as we can agreement with the Department of Public Expenditure and Reform - I am hopeful that we will - the Deputy will see the figures and be able to debate them.

Éamon Ó Cuív (Galway West, Fianna Fail)
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It is clear that this issue was not a priority with the Minister in the negotiations because he was boasting all the time that he managed to get all his priorities in the CAP package. Therefore, this was not a priority and we accept that. The Minister left himself totally open on this issue. Can he confirm whether he will be able to provide more than 45% co-funding under the Pillar 2 funding in the next round? That is 45% from the Government and 55% from the EU, or better.

Simon Coveney (Cork South Central, Fine Gael)
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With respect, I am not going to confirm anything today until I have concluded an agreement with the Minister for Public Expenditure and Reform who is working with me on this matter and has been very helpful on it. This issue was a priority under the Irish negotiations and there is nothing to prevent Ireland from designing the kind of rural development programme and the funding we need. We do not need the European Union mandating us to do that. Different countries want different options.

Éamon Ó Cuív (Galway West, Fianna Fail)
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Yes.

Simon Coveney (Cork South Central, Fine Gael)
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The option that Ireland can and will take is an ambitious option. I do not know where the Deputy is coming from when he said that we did not achieve our goals. We did achieve our goals in the negotiations. Ireland now has the capacity to choose the level of co-funding we want and other countries that want to choose lesser co-funding, for whatever reason, if they are in bailouts or whatever, that is for them to decide. I would have thought the Deputy would have welcomed member states making their own decisions on these matters rather than being dictated to by the European Union in a very stringent way in terms of co-funding rates under rural development programmes.