Seanad debates

Tuesday, 25 May 2021

Nithe i dtosach suíonna - Commencement Matters

Common Agricultural Policy

9:00 am

Photo of Garret AhearnGarret Ahearn (Fine Gael)
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The Commencement matter I have tabled consists of a long statement. I welcome the Minister to the Chamber today and particularly thank him for being here, which indicates the seriousness of the matter. This is a very important week in Common Agricultural Policy, CAP, negotiations and a breakthrough is expected. I wish the Minister well in those negotiations. He has the support of all of us in this House to get the best outcome possible for all our farmers.

I met the local IFA group in Tipperary last Friday. There are two IFA groups. The chairperson of the IFA group in north Tipperary is Imelda Walsh and the chairperson of the IFA group in south Tipperary is Erica O’Keeffe. The president of the IFA, Tim Cullinan, comes from Tipperary; he is a good Tipperary man. There is concern within the agricultural community about the negotiations. That happens at every juncture where there are new CAP negotiations. The members of the IFA group asked me to relay a number of points they consider are very important. Certainly farmers in Tipperary believe they are very important. This is not about trying to pitch one farmer against the other but about getting the best outcome possible for all farmers in Ireland.Farming is a major factor in all walks of life in Tipperary and the amount of productive farmers that are a benefit to the community there is hugely significant. They asked me to raise a number of points. I am sure the Minister will be familiar with some of them, but I wish to emphasise the areas they think are important in the negotiations.

The first is to minimise the impact of eco schemes on each farmer's basic payment. The proposals on eco schemes will see 30% of CAP pillar 1 funding ring-fenced for environmental measures. The eco schemes must be paid in addition to basic payments and must not be based on costs incurred on income foregone. If introduced, costs incurred on income foregone will mean further cuts to farm incomes.

The second is that the proposal for agriculture must be robustly defended. I refer to the EU Council's position on 75% internal convergence. The key message I get from farmers in Tipperary is about convergence. I know the European Parliament wants a full flattening of that. At a minimum, we must hold to 75% internal convergence. I welcome the fact that the Minister is seeking more flexibility for the State on the spending of this money. Convergence is a key point of that, so that we support it to a certain level, but we must be in a position where CAP does not make it unviable for more farmers to get into the industry.

The Government must confirm its commitment to maximise national co-financing of CAP pillar 2 schemes. My background is in tillage farming and there needs to be a pillar 2 scheme for tillage farmers. Sometimes it is a forgotten area of agriculture and we need to focus on it.

The Government must also honour its €1.5 billion carbon tax rural environmental protection scheme, REPS, 2 commitment in the programme for Government. Other areas of concern include an appropriate genuine farmer definition and the phasing out of long-term leasing of entitlements, as they are EU requirements in the next CAP negotiations. The IFA proposes a minimum economic output metric to be used in defining a genuine farmer and this metric would be based on sales or output per hectare, with a differentiated rate depending on the areas of natural constraint, ANC, definition. A range of issues are of huge concern to farmers in my area, in particular productive farmers. I will follow up when the Minister has responded. I thank him for being here.

Photo of Charlie McConalogueCharlie McConalogue (Donegal, Fianna Fail)
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I thank Senator Ahearn for raising this issue. His timing is important, as I am flying to Brussels this evening and I will be there until Friday for three days of a trilogue meeting between the Council of Ministers, the European Commission and the Parliament to try to get final agreement, as the Senator indicated in his contribution, to the European CAP plan.

The CAP negotiations have been under way for just under three years. The CAP reform proposals were first presented to the European Commission in June 2018. The European Council reached a position with regard to those proposals in October 2020, as did the European Parliament. Since then, trilogue negotiations between all parties have been under way. The negotiations have been challenging. The Council favours a position of broad flexibility for member states. I fully support this approach. It is important to be able to take account of the very different farm structures across Europe. The Parliament, however, is seeking a more prescriptive approach. As always, a compromise must be found. I continue to work with my counterparts in Europe to achieve a successful outcome for Irish farmers.

The new CAP proposals are focused around a number of key areas. First, there is an increase in environmental ambition with the introduction of eco schemes in pillar l, enhanced conditionality standards and a number of targets for spending directed towards environmental actions. I believe farmers more than anyone understand the impacts of climate change and are willing to engage on this topic. Farmers have always been adapters and they have also been adopters in this regard. We can see this in the keen interest shown in the results-based environment-agri, REAP, pilot. The new CAP will include interventions to support environmental ambition. For the first time there will be a new eco scheme as part of pillar I payments. Under this, farmers will be rewarded for undertaking environmental actions and farming in an environmentally friendly fashion.

Second, the proposals have focused on the continuing redistribution of farm payments through capping, degressivity and convergence. I recognise that this is a challenging area and there are mixed views among farmers and farm organisations in this regard, as Senator Ahearn outlined. I have always been clear that I believe in capping of overall farm payments and that is something I have pursued throughout the negotiations in Brussels.

The new CAP will introduce a new delivery model, which will move away from the compliance-based approach to focus on the results and outcomes achieved. I support the intention to focus more on the outcomes and results. Each member state must submit a comprehensive and coherent CAP strategic plan to cover both Pillar I and Pillar 2 expenditure. The entire process is the subject of extensive consultations with stakeholders and citizens alike. We began this process even before the regulations were published and since then we have set up a CAP consultative committee with broad representation among stakeholders. There have also been public consultations at various stages including a strength, weakness, opportunity and threat, SWOT, analysis, so there are ample opportunities for all to engage in this process.

This week's Agrifish Council aims to reach an overall conclusion. If we are to submit our plans to the European Commission by January 2022 it will be necessary to reach agreement soon. The next CAP will be a further evolution in this central EU policy that has served farmers well for many decades. Citizens are focused clearly on climate change and environmental action and the new CAP will address those demands and support farmers to bring about this change. These are and will be challenging negotiations. There are clear differences of opinion between the various EU institutions. I assure Senator Ahearn that my intention is to achieve the best possible outcome for Irish farmers.

Photo of Garret AhearnGarret Ahearn (Fine Gael)
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I thank the Minister and wish him well in his negotiations this week, which he will attend following this contribution. What I have heard from farmers right across Tipperary is that it is important that the Minister stands up to the Commissioner because there is a feeling that he does not have farmers' interests at heart so the Minister must represent Irish farmers, including those in Tipperary, as strongly as possible. We in Tipperary lost approximately €13 million when the previous CAP negotiations took place and we could potentially lose €7.5 million if convergence happens again. That is a hugely damaging to the industry. At the moment, the industry is doing quite well but it is volatile and that has always been the case. We must be seen to support productive and sustainable farmers going forward. I stress to the Minister the importance of the position he and the Government play in supporting productive farmers. In recent weeks we have seen issues in other areas, which I know we cannot speak about too much, but there are areas within farming that can be very vulnerable on the back of decisions that are made. Productive farmers in my community in Tipperary cannot survive without the support and payments coming from Europe. We must support productive farmers. We produce food for 50 million right across the world, but to do that we need the support from the Minister, the Government and European Union. I urge the Minister to represent all the farmers within this country in his negotiations in the coming days. I know he will do that, and I wish him well in it.

Photo of Charlie McConalogueCharlie McConalogue (Donegal, Fianna Fail)
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It is complex at European level because we have the three institutions – the Council of Ministers, which is made up of the various agriculture Ministers from the 27 member states, the EU Commission, which tries to co-ordinate policy and the European Parliament. It is not necessarily that the Commission is pushing for one thing, it is more a case of the moving parts between all three institutions and the fact that 27 member states are feeding into the process.

The funding pot has been defined for the next CAP at European level. We will have to define what our domestic contribution to that is. I will be working to maximise that in every way I can. My key objective this week is to ensure that we have as much flexibility and discretion as possible to be able to make our own decisions on our national CAP plan. I do not want our hands to be tied in a way that sets our course, as I believe we should set our course ourselves during the summer in terms of developing the next national CAP. There are difficult issues involved but I want to engage with farmers from all counties and all parts of the country to frame it and to get an outcome that is ultimately fair to all types of farming and all parts of the country. That is a challenge, but it is my objective.As I engage at European level next week, it will be about trying to ensure the outcome is one that gives us the capacity to have the best CAP possible to reflect our national agricultural model and the interests of farmers across the country over the next period of up to seven years.

Photo of Mary Seery KearneyMary Seery Kearney (Fine Gael)
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I thank the Minister. We wish him well and thank him for his hard work on our behalf.

Sitting suspended at 10.10 a.m. and resumed at 10.30 a.m.