Paul Bradford (Fine Gael)

I want to reiterate a request I made to the Leader a fortnight ago. I asked the Minister for Agriculture, Food and the Marine to come to the House as soon as possible to discuss the future funding of CAP and the way in which funding will be spent in this country. As my colleagues will know, last week initial proposals were made public. The bottom line is that it seems Ireland will continue to receive a significant level of European funding for agriculture in line with what we already receive.

The debate will have to be very engaged and detailed in terms of how those moneys will be spent. A major choice faces the Minister, political system and farming organisations in terms of how we spend the money and the future we see for farmers in Ireland, in particular small farmers who currently have grave income problems and have not benefited as much as they should have over the past ten or 15 years from European funding. There will be a choice and debate which will cause difficulty and a certain degree of division but it needs to start as soon as possible.

The Leader has been in contact with the Minister but he should try to come to the House for a debate because the architecture of the future of rural Ireland and farming can be put in place over the next 12 months. It is a fundamentally important debate and will decide whether we want to keep smaller farmers and landholders on the land. It is a debate worth having in the House.