Niall Collins (Limerick, Fianna Fail)
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To ask the Minister for Agriculture, Food and the Marine the financial implications for farmers here, including the re-distribution of payments, if the revised proposals on external convergence in the MFF are agreed, which would see all countries receiving a minimum payment of €196/ha, or 75% of the average by 2020. [6979/13]

Simon Coveney (Cork South Central, Fine Gael)
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The financial implications for farmers arising from the MFF, in terms of the latter’s effect on farmers’ direct payments, derive primarily from the overall allocations made to individual Member States.

Under the terms of the MFF agreement reached last Friday by Heads of State and Government, the distribution of direct payments between Member States indeed included a provision that all Member States should receive a minimum average payment of €196 per hectare by 2020. This essentially involves an adjustment to the original Commission proposal on external convergence - which itself was suggested by Ireland - in order to accommodate new Member States. The impact has been a very marginal one on Ireland’s overall direct payments ceiling, which remains at over €1.2 billion per year for the period.