For as long as we leave the CAP unreformed, we are trying to live in the past. In its present form, the policy is both hugely wasteful and highly inefficient, even in reaching its own declared objectives. It penalises the majority of Europeans at the expense of a small minority. Even worse, it penalises the peoples of the developing world by distorting the world marketplace for their agricultural goods. In Ireland, successive Governments have taken precisely the wrong attitude towards this cancer in the European project. We did not invent it – it was there when we joined – but instead of recognising it for the uneconomic, unfair and ultimately unsustainable monster that it was, we fell on it like manna from heaven.