Seanad debates
Tuesday, 11 November 2003
Direct Payments Decoupling: Statements.
Another category about which people were concerned was farmers who suffered penalties because of a mundane error or minor miscalculation of some kind. I did negotiate this. Those penalties will not be taken into account in forming the entitlement for farmers; they will receive their full entitlements. There are also new entrants to farming. These will be a priority category in obtaining quotas from the national reserve. This is right because in order to have to have a younger generation of farmers we must give them hope and offer them a chance of succeeding by giving them a decent quota. Younger farmers with inadequate quota are entitled to make a case for additional quota from the national reserve. I am pleased the Commission gave us some leeway in this regard.
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