Michael Fitzmaurice Questions CAP Consultation and Farm Input

When a cap is agreed in Brussels, say the figures, how much of an input and how much consultation is done with the farm organisations and how much is it listened to by the department to have an input into it or is it basically civil servants making the decision and I see on your submission you had asked that the committee would inform you, do we get any more information or the secretariat might be able to tell us that on the ins and outs of it, but for those of you that has past experience of it and for new organisations, is there input or is basically the die cast when they bring you in and tell you what they are doing, to put it simple? Yes, so our experience from the last cap review was, to be fair to Minister Merlon-Logue at the time he had done his marked tours, he went out and listened directly and he deserved credit for that time because it was the first time I thought that was done, maybe I am wrong, but the big question after that was, well what did he do with what he heard? So there is one thing, listen to someone and there is another thing, actually heeding the person and did he actually take heed of what we said? Some things, yes, he may have but other things he certainly didn't in that regard. I am really curious and again the reason why I put the diagram in, the big chunk of money there, the 400 plus billion for the national plan, how is that going to be formulated? The European Commission are going to work with our Department of Agriculture, is that document going to be shared in draft form with farm organisations for critique? These are all questions in and around the communication, what is going to be made available, where is it going to be made available so that we have the facts that we can read and we can't be reading somewhere that you rely on information that is considered fact, then you can have some input or provide some input with a mechanism, any mechanism. The question then remains, will you be heeded? And our experience has been fairly poor on that in the past. Thanks, Deputy. Lookit, we had talked there, I mentioned about the whistle tour around the country. I remember we were in Sligo one night and only half was through the tour around the country as it was. Already decisions were made at that point. So that had nothing to do with what information was gathered. No fault of the man, he'd done his justice and he came round and met people. Because the way I look at it is, it's too far advanced by the time we get engagement in it, to leave it at such a level that we can direct it in such a way that it's farmer friendly and farmer work. And we have brought this up at different stages. And one little life of support, I suppose, to maybe the ACES and some of the other groups that's here, that has representation on it, and this year we'll have on it, is we may have some input in some of this stuff for the first time ever. And that's going to bring the change. So, please God, we're part of that ourselves. That will give us a bit of encouragement, but it's not enough because we're working on templates that's already designed. ACES. What's ACES? It's another group that we will meet where you can get representation there. It's on the different bodies of the workings within the department and where different schemes are levels or we can put different offers forward. Now, one example coming up is there that the last meeting, they talked about maybe doing the done it before on beef. Now, they're talking about sheep or tillage and, or sheep or sucklar. And tillage was another one. Like, some people were knocking that, we're not going to name them, but the farming body wanted them discussed. So, the farming bodies was heard and we're going, sheep now is going to be the next meeting. The family, the next one will be tillage. So, it gives us an input to where we see it come forward or where it's been taken, that they can bring it back to the different relevant bodies within the department. So, I think it's a big advantage. It's a help. It's not a full open door, but it's a start and find. So, the way I look at it is, we have to keep opening them doors to get in there. But a lot of this is pre-set from an early stage and we have to get, try and get that changed. Yeah. Thanks, Deputy. Deputy. Yeah. Just to come in on Deputy Fitzmaurice's point, from having sat through the last CAP consultation committee for the current programme, the initial commission draft. That doesn't really change significantly. While the Council of Ministers will come with their approach and then the European Parliament, who have co-decision, have an opportunity to make amendments themselves to the draft text. So, you know, you did make the comment, well, did they just come back and tell members of the CAP consultation committee, well, this is what's happening. So, there is an opportunity there to make changes to the legal text, right up to the time, through the trial logs, right through until there is an agreement between those three groups, the Parliament, the Commission, and the Council. It would be critically important that we look from this perspective, from an Irish perspective here. And I have said it already here. It's a very divisive draft regulation that, for the first time, looks at a digressive payment. Because this regulation was written for the 27 EU member state, not for Ireland alone. It's a draft document for all member states. And Ireland were unique because they had a derogation to the regulation with regard to historic payments. But it now would appear, even Paul Savage's contribution here a month ago, would say that there's a move away from the entitlements to a new digressive area-based income support. But within that, that's where there's a big challenge here. And that's where this committee could have a role to play to ensure that that digressive payment would start with all farmers who all have to comply with the same conditionality and stewardship in the new one. We all have to comply with the exact same rules and regulations, that all farmers would get a uniform support under an area-based payment per hectare. That would be the INHFA position. The regulation allows for differentiating that payment between different types of farmers based on their agricultural activity. And this is very worrying. So I would hope that this will be looked at when you're putting your draft report back that, from Ireland's perspective, we definitely need to have all farmers supported equally and fairly in this process. And that would be something that I hope you would take on board. Thank you. Thank you.