Eamon Gilmore (Dún Laoghaire, Labour)
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Question 21: To ask the Minister for Agriculture, Fisheries and Food if he will reverse the cut imposed on 34,000 farmers in disadvantaged areas in 2009 in view of the income position on farms. [43627/09]

Brendan Smith (Cavan-Monaghan, Fianna Fail)
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Against the background of the deterioration in public finances, my approach in preparing the 2009 Estimates for my Department was to protect expenditure for major developmental measures in the agri-food sector. To achieve this objective, savings had to be found in other areas and I decided, reluctantly, to reduce expenditure under the Disadvantaged Areas Scheme for 2009 by reducing the maximum area limit to 34 hectares. While overall expenditure has fallen, almost 67,000 farmers have not suffered any reduction in their payments as a result of the introduction of the 34-hectare limit. The rates of payment, which were increased by 8% in 2007, remained unchanged for the 2009 Scheme.

Notwithstanding the reduction in funding, the total amount available under the Disadvantaged Areas Scheme in 2009 is €220 million. This represents a substantial injection of funds paid to farmers situated in the areas and the Scheme continues to be one of the best-funded Disadvantaged Areas Schemes in the European Union. Payments under the 2009 Scheme commenced on 22 September and, to date, payments worth in excess of €219 million have been made, with payments continuing to issue, as individual cases are resolved.

I also secured approval to use previously inaccessible unspent Single Payment System funds to address, among other things, specific disadvantages affecting certain sectors in economically vulnerable or environmentally sensitive areas, under the agreement reached in November 2008 on the Health Check of the CAP. Resulting from this agreement, in the region of €25 million will be available in additional funding for each of the next three years 2010, 2011 and 2012 for these targeted measures. Mindful of the particular difficulties in the sheep sector, I decided to allocate €18 of the available funds each year, for the next three years, on a Grassland Scheme to support incomes in the sheep sector. In addition to this agreement, I successfully negotiated for the use of the National Reserve element of these funds from 2009. In this regard, I have already announced that approximately €7 million will be paid to hill sheep farmers as a once off payment, in the form of the 2009 Uplands Sheep Payment, benefiting approximately 13,000 hill sheep farmers. I have recently confirmed that €5 million of this sum will be issued to qualifying farmers in the coming weeks, with the balances being paid early in the New Year.

Notwithstanding the difficulties in the public finances, the position is that in excess of €3.2 billion will be spent by my Department in support of agriculture, fisheries and food. It is important to get through this challenging period and continue towards achieving the full potential of our most important indigenous industry when the economy begins to grow again.