Michael Comiskey (Fine Gael)

Possibly. At present they cannot do so. The new system must be fair and must encourage people to farm for the sake of farming and producing material, rather than merely for the entitlements. It must encourage young farmers to try to get onto the ladder.

There are a number of other issues I wish to mention although I realise the Minister may not have the answers today. In County Leitrim where I come from, representing the people of Sligo-North Leitrim, there are national issues. The 80 km rule that was introduced in the budget is a little bit of a problem in that area. We would have some of the poorest land in the country and people in the region must lease or rent land outside the area and travel 50, 60 or 70 miles to get to it. They are prepared to do that, many of them being youngish farmers. Some 60 people in County Leitrim are doing that kind of travelling and they must be catered for. They are based in and spending their money in County Leitrim but they move out for this. The option is to buy cereals and feed the stock indoors or rent the bit of better land where they can produce better lamb or beef.

Stocking density is another small problem. I know the Minister will consider this in respect of the commonage areas where people were not allowed to build up their stock. There are hardship cases where people may have been affected by TB, or other reasons, and were not able to have the necessary stock in 2011, at point 3 of the programme. We will continue to work on that.

Another point, which is very important in my part of the country and which was touched on earlier, including by the Minister, is the greening or agri-environment options scheme, or AEOS. The old REPS did the greening business for us. In the future, if an AEOS scheme is in place, it will do some of that work for us.

Before I move away from the subject there is the issue of pillar 2 in the rural development programme. There could be food processing industries in place. It is possible that in County Leitrim we lost jobs to County Cork because of a technicality that existed. People could not draw down a grant to produce food and we lost jobs. We do not begrudge them to Cork but we could do with them in Leitrim. It would be worthwhile considering this under the LEADER programme and have people able to draw down a grant for food production in different areas.

I shall leave it at that and we will continue to deal with the questions.