Brendan Smith (Cavan-Monaghan, Fianna Fail)
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777. To ask the Minister for Agriculture, Food and the Marine the proposals he will make at the next EU Agriculture Council in respect of the need to support the dairy sector through its present difficulties; and if he will make a statement on the matter. [22836/16]

Michael Creed (Cork North West, Fine Gael)
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At yesterday’s Council of Agriculture Ministers, the Commission announced a €500m support package for EU farmers. This is to be divided into two tranches, the first €150m will be reserved for an EU-wide scheme compensating farmers who reduce their milk output over certain reference periods towards the end of 2016.

For the other element of the package, €350m is set aside for Member State initiatives with fixed allocations per MS. Ireland will be allocated €11m. My firm view, which I expressed strongly at Council, is that we must have maximum flexibility at Member State level to use this funding as we wish and in a way which helps farmers while delivering maximum value for money. There are many details yet to be worked out on both elements of the package and we are awaiting further details from the Commission.

The outcome of yesterday’s Council was a considerable success from Ireland’s point of view. Firstly the threat of the available funding being entirely conditional on supply control has not materialised. Secondly there will be a significant degree of flexibility on the use of the remaining 70% of the package, though the detail has yet to be finalised.

The third thing is that there is now agreement to allow Member States to pay advance payments on the BPS and the RDP in October this year. This will allow advance payments of 70% in the basic payment and up to 85% for RDP schemes. Advance payments help on-farm cashflow and have been requested by Ireland on a number of occasions. In addition to these measures, there was also a strong political commitment from the Commission to extend the market support measures beyond the current time scales into February 2017. Our focus now will turn to the implementation of the package and my department is in close contact with the Commission on next steps.