Simon Coveney (Cork South Central, Fine Gael)

I will be brief and will not be tempted into a debate on the agri-environment options scheme by Senator Ó Domhnaill because I know many other Senators want to ask specific questions. A commitment was given in the budget last year for a new AEOS with a budget of €50 million, which was not budgeted for. That is a fact. What was budgeted for was €34 million, which was the cost of AEOS I. I have had to put an AEOS II in place, on which we will spend approximately €22 million or €23 million, and I have had to finance that by making savings elsewhere. They are savings people will see around budget time. Some of them are pretty unpalatable but that is the reality. It is important to put the record straight.

In regard to the destocking of commonage, it is important to state that understocking commonage areas can be as damaging to biodiversity, which is what drives this, as overstocking. Hillsides in Ireland, as in other parts of Europe, rely on livestock in order to keep certain species down and to ensure weeds do not take over. In some parts of the west of Ireland what was previously grazeable farmland for hill sheep or hill cattle is now unfarmable because of understocking.

That is why we are in the middle of an assessment of commonage areas to look at appropriate stocking rates. The likely outcome of that is we will encourage farmers to increase stocking rates on hillsides, in some cases quite significantly. I hope they will be able to do that and that may be a qualifying criteria for some of the payments which they may be eligible to draw down next year. They may be required to increase stocking rates to encourage active farming and the responsible management of quite a sensitive environment on hillsides and mountainous commonage land.

As regards increasing the AEOS payment for eligible land from €75 to €150, which was also a promise made previously without any grounds in terms of getting agreement from the Commission, I initially said that because I wanted to maximise the number of people who could get on to the AEOS, I would keep the payment at €75 rather than increase it to €150. I have since met the IFA and a number of the farmers concerned and I said I would look at it again, which we are doing, in the context of our overall expenditure review. If we are to prioritise giving a little bit more money to commonage areas, which are mature and are eligible for increased payment, and, most important, if we can get sanction from the European Commission to increase that payment, because 75% of it comes from it - even if I wanted to do this next week, I could not do so because we do not have that sanction - we will look at that in the context of the overall budget in terms of where we are trying to take agriculture and what areas we are trying to support even with the limited, shrinking budget. That is as open as I can be about it.