Martin Ferris (Kerry North-West Limerick, Sinn Fein)
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To ask the Minister for Agriculture, Food and the Marine if he will support a limit of €100,000 on the amount that any person or company could receive in one year under the single farm payment, thus freeing up almost €33 million for redistribution to small to medium farm households. [46493/12]

Simon Coveney (Cork South Central, Fine Gael)
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I am open to considering a limit on the amount that any person or company could receive in one year under the Single Farm payment. Indeed, I have already indicated my support for the EU Commission proposal to apply progressive reductions to payments in excess of €150,000 and to apply a ceiling of €300,000, although I recognise that this will be problematic for some Member States and that it will have little practical impact on Irish farmers.

However, I would point out that, while I am open to considering a limit in principle, there is no provision in the Commission proposal to permit a payment cap of €100,000. Moreover such a limit would not release €33 million for redistribution, since capping the payment at €100,000 would still require the disbursement of payments of €100,000 to the farmers currently receiving in excess of that amount. In fact the amount available would be of the order of €8 million, based on current CAP funding levels.

It should also be borne in mind that decisions have yet to be taken on the multiannual financial framework for the EU budget for the period after 2013. Thus, at this point, we do not know the overall amount of funding that will be available for the Common Agricultural Policy or the allocation that will be made to Ireland. In those circumstances, it is not possible to provide definitive estimates of the impact of applying caps to the Single Farm Payment.