Speaking before the Oireachtas committee on agriculture this Tuesday, the Department of Agriculture’s assistant secretary Brendan Gleeson said Ireland welcomed the inclusion of “critically important” points on maintaining as large a budget as possible and continuing direct payments in European Commission proposals leaked last month. Our position has been unequivocally that the direct payment is the pillar of supporting farming families,” he said.

The draft Commission paper suggests a cap on maximum payments per farm and a narrower definition of active farmers for new rules after the current CAP is set to expire in 2020.

Simplification

Gleeson also highlighted the focus on simplification, greater environmental focus and ability for EU countries to implement schemes more freely in the Commission’s draft and said: “If these are the priorities, Ireland can support many of them. However, the devil as always is in the detail. Greater flexibility for member states is not always synonymous with simplification.”

From the Fianna Fáil bench, Jackie Cahill called for the next CAP to maintain dairy intervention and Charlie McConalogue argued that “the next CAP should put a cap of €60,000 on payments”.

Gleeson replied that Ireland would strongly support the continuation of intervention. On capping payments, he said: “This is something the minister is prepared to discuss but we haven’t set a position yet.”

Negotiating a new CAP by 2020 would be a very significant challenge

He acknowledged that Brexit would put pressure on the European budget, with the CAP’s share of missing UK contributions amounting to €3.8bn per year. Independent TD Michael Fitzmaurice translated this into a €100m shortfall for Irish farmers alone.

Between Brexit and budget talks, as well as European elections in 2019, Gleeson said that “negotiating a new CAP by 2020 would be a very significant challenge”. He cited a European Parliament report suggesting that the current CAP could be rolled over until 2023 while a new policy remains under negotiation.

Part-time farmers

He warned that “coming up with a definition of what is an active farmer is fraught and difficult” and would be one of the most difficult point in upcoming talks between EU member states. He played down fears that the Commission’s draft might exclude part-time farmers, noting the vagueness of the current wording on eligibility for payments being linked to drawing “a significant extent” of income from farming. “Everybody agrees in principle that CAP payments should be directed at farm families,” he said.

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