Brian Ó Domhnaill (Fianna Fail) | Oireachtas source

Sorry, it is €700 per hectare so that the redistribution would occur there and between the average and the €700 and there would be a cut-off above €700. Deputy Ó Cuív has raised this in the Dáil and at the Oireachtas Joint Committee on Agriculture, Food and Marine. There is a question over whether productivity increases over a certain hectarage. The Department's figures above the €400 have been debated at committee and I do not want to dwell on them too long today. I believe that the cut-off should be lower than €700 per hectare because nothing supports additional productivity above payments of €400 per hectare because the productivity does not increase between €400 and €700 or between €400 and €1,000. If that were done the people who are productive between the average and €400 per hectare would not have to meet some of the moneys required to raise the additional €70 million.

Some 55% of farmers have less than 32 ha and 78% of farms are less than 50 ha, which is approximately 120 acres. Therefore, the vast majority of Irish farms are relatively small. Most of those are small productive units that are relatively intensive but are providing the animals for larger farms or for factory production and are critical to the future of Irish agriculture. They include farms in the west of Ireland that are producing young lambs and calves that are sent on for secondary production before going on to be slaughtered or for live export.

While I acknowledge that the Minister has done excellent work on Pillar 1, I believe the €700 cap is too high. I agree with the Minister that the cap of €150,000 per farm in the CAP proposals is also too high come 2020. When 70% of Irish farmers are receiving relatively small payments it is unfair to have a cap of €150,000. The cap should have been reduced to €100,000 or below, which would allow for a redistribution of funds by 2019.

In the past six months there has been a concentration on agreeing Pillar 1 after which we could get a deal for small farmers under Pillar 2. Many people bought into that, including the IFA. However, I never bought into it because one could never have an agreed Pillar 1 without knowing what would be in Pillar 2. While I acknowledge what the Minister has said on the Pillar 2 allocation, regardless of how we dress it up there is a substantial reduction in Pillar 2 money to Irish farmers, going from €4.825 billion under the 2001 to 2013 scheme down to €3.77 billion in the period from 2014 to 2020.