Matt Carthy (Cavan-Monaghan, Sinn Fein)
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2504. To ask the Minister for Agriculture, Food and the Marine the average level of payment that would be paid on all remaining hectares in the event of a €400 per hectare basic farm payment being allocated for the first 30 hectares of each farm and in the event of a €60,000 upper limit for pillar 1 payments; and if he will make a statement on the matter. [19420/21]

Charlie McConalogue (Donegal, Fianna Fail)
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If all farmers were paid €400 per hectare on the first 30 hectares the average level of payment on all remaining hectares would be reduced by more than 90%. The cost of an allocation of €400 per hectare on the first 30 hectares held by farmers would be over €1 billion, which is over 90% of the national ceiling for Pillar I. All remaining Pillar I payments would therefore, be similarly reduced in order to finance this payment. In practice, this would also mean that the allocation for ECO Schemes would be reduced significantly below the minimum of 20% contained in the proposals agreed by Council.

As this maximum €12,000 payment (30 hectares*€400) would encompass 90% of the farmers payments it is, therefore, extremely unlikely that an upper limit of €60,000 would have an effect once the remaining 10% of the national ceiling for Pillar I payments is divided between the remaining Pillar I schemes.

Discussions on the allocations under the Pillar I ceiling are ongoing at present, however, it is likely that a specified amount will be required under the ECO Schemes and to support Young Farmers. It is also likely Member States will be restricted in the total payment per hectare payable under the Complementary Redistributive Income Support for Sustainability Scheme.