Results 10,021-10,040 of 40,897 for speaker:Simon Coveney

Joint Oireachtas Committee on Agriculture, Food and the Marine: Update on CAP and CFP: Discussion with Minister for Agriculture, Food and the Marine (7 May 2013)

Simon Coveney: Other members would also like to get information.

Joint Oireachtas Committee on Agriculture, Food and the Marine: Update on CAP and CFP: Discussion with Minister for Agriculture, Food and the Marine (7 May 2013)

Simon Coveney: I have the information and I will circulate it.

Joint Oireachtas Committee on Agriculture, Food and the Marine: Update on CAP and CFP: Discussion with Minister for Agriculture, Food and the Marine (7 May 2013)

Simon Coveney: I will provide the figures later in order that I can answer the questions that have been put. It is 3.20 p.m. and I was supposed to leave five minutes ago. With regard to the reference year, we secured some flexibility in this regard following an Irish request in March during the negotiations because the reference year until then had been 2014, which was undisputed. There was a tie-back...

Joint Oireachtas Committee on Agriculture, Food and the Marine: Update on CAP and CFP: Discussion with Minister for Agriculture, Food and the Marine (7 May 2013)

Simon Coveney: I am sorry. There are different views in the different institutions. We have said in the Council that protecting permanent pasture should happen on a national or regional basis. If the limit on ploughing permanent pasture at 5% was applied on an individual farm basis, it could be restrictive for somebody who is looking to increase productivity, expand a dairy herd or, for example, putting...

Joint Oireachtas Committee on Agriculture, Food and the Marine: Update on CAP and CFP: Discussion with Minister for Agriculture, Food and the Marine (7 May 2013)

Simon Coveney: I will give a brief statement on where we are at. The CFP is coming down to four areas that need political agreement. The first is on discards and how we manage the cessation of discarding fish unnecessarily at sea. Currently, in Irish waters between 400,000 and 500,000 tonnes of fish are thrown over the side dead each year, which is a huge volume of fish. Some are juvenile fish but many...

Joint Oireachtas Committee on Agriculture, Food and the Marine: Update on CAP and CFP: Discussion with Minister for Agriculture, Food and the Marine (7 May 2013)

Simon Coveney: This is the first time the European Parliament or the Council have ever done this. We have never agreed through co-decision or a trialogue process a Common Agricultural Policy or a Common Fisheries Policy. Therefore, it is new ground for everybody. There is an element of mistrust, although the personalities have a good relationship. Everybody is trying to get a final agreement as close to...

Joint Oireachtas Committee on Agriculture, Food and the Marine: Update on CAP and CFP: Discussion with Minister for Agriculture, Food and the Marine (7 May 2013)

Simon Coveney: There is a thing called relative stability which is what determines who gets quota and where. That is not being changed under the CFP reform because if we attempt to change it, the process would go nowhere because there is not a qualified majority and there are probably only two or three countries that would seek to change it. Obviously, Ireland would like to see an increase in its quota...

Ceisteanna - Questions - Priority Questions: Animal Feedstuffs (8 May 2013)

Simon Coveney: Question No. 1 concerns the response to the fodder crisis in recent weeks that has also been an issue throughout the winter. We had a one-and-a-half-hour debate on it last night, which we will continue tonight. The Deputy opposite posed some questions last night that I will answer today and I think he might find the answers useful. As I outlined, we are doing a number of things, including...

Ceisteanna - Questions - Priority Questions: Animal Feedstuffs (8 May 2013)

Simon Coveney: The Deputy asked for information on the figures for fallen animals. The most up-to-date figures available to me show that at the beginning of May, the total for 2013 is 143,000 fallen animals, compared to 117,000 last year. In the first three months of 2009, there were just under 100,000 fallen animals compared with 106,000 this year. It is important to put those figures in context. I...

Ceisteanna - Questions - Priority Questions: Animal Feedstuffs (8 May 2013)

Simon Coveney: Are we being allowed the same time for replies as is usual? We seem to be very rushed.

Ceisteanna - Questions - Priority Questions: Animal Feedstuffs (8 May 2013)

Simon Coveney: I will come back to answer the rest of the Deputy's questions.

Ceisteanna - Questions - Priority Questions: Animal Feedstuffs (8 May 2013)

Simon Coveney: Sometimes it would seem that the Deputy opposite has never been in government. When the Minister for Social Protection, Deputy Burton, announced the extension of the scheme to which he refers, she found that money from within her own budget.

Ceisteanna - Questions - Priority Questions: Animal Feedstuffs (8 May 2013)

Simon Coveney: I have to find any extra money I spend from within my budget. There is no point in taking money from farmers in one scheme to give it under another scheme.

Ceisteanna - Questions - Priority Questions: Animal Feedstuffs (8 May 2013)

Simon Coveney: We have prioritised it.

Ceisteanna - Questions - Priority Questions: Animal Feedstuffs (8 May 2013)

Simon Coveney: It is nothing to do with getting approval from Government; I can manage my own budget. We are spending €1 million or so on the transport subsidy. We have said there is no ceiling to what we will spend on animal welfare when farmers need to be assisted in extreme cases. The Department has taken more than 500 calls on the emergency assistance help line. We have directly assisted 100...

Ceisteanna - Questions - Priority Questions: Animal Feedstuffs (8 May 2013)

Simon Coveney: I ask the Deputy to listen. We are trying to incentivise the importation of large volumes of fodder over a short period of time. Therefore, we are sticking to the date of this Friday. This date already includes an extension. However, if a farmer has proof of purchase of fodder dated before this Friday, we will, of course, facilitate the bringing in of that feed next week and the week...

Ceisteanna - Questions - Priority Questions: Coillte Harvesting Rights (8 May 2013)

Simon Coveney: This question refers to Coillte. I am somewhat limited in what I can say, apart from what I have said many times, which is that the Government made a decision last summer to look in some detail at the viability of the sale of timber harvesting rights currently owned by Coillte. That process has included my Department, NewERA, the Department of Public Expenditure and Reform and the board of...

Ceisteanna - Questions - Priority Questions: Coillte Harvesting Rights (8 May 2013)

Simon Coveney: Deputy Rabbitte said that the probability of agreeing to the immediate privatisation of Coillte looks more unlikely every day. While that may be the outcome, I do not want to predetermine the result of Cabinet discussions. I have always said that we will protect the public asset Coillte manages in any sales process. Selling timber futures or harvesting rights is very similar to selling a...

Ceisteanna - Questions - Priority Questions: Coillte Harvesting Rights (8 May 2013)

Simon Coveney: The Bacon report is just one of a series of reports. My Department had an evaluation carried out on a pro bono basis by Deloitte quite some time ago, while NewERA has commissioned a number of reports on the valuation of harvesting rights, as has Coillte. Different people have different views. It is my job to bring a set of recommendations to the Government based on all the work that has...

Ceisteanna - Questions - Priority Questions: Coillte Harvesting Rights (8 May 2013)

Simon Coveney: Within the next two to three weeks.