Coupling of payments and leakage of CAP funds from agriculture were among the main topics raised once the floor was opened to questions at the IFA’s regional meeting in Cork on Monday night.

Seen as a way of targeting money to active farmers, IFA president Francie Gorman said that Commissioner Hansen is looking at potentially increasing the coupling element of the budget up to 25%.

Speaking at the event in the Rochestown Park Hotel, Gorman told the crowd: “If that came in you could be looking at front-loading of coupled payments and that could be on dairy cows along with suckler cows.

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“If you couple [payments], you’re giving it to the people who are doing work and you’re taking a percentage of the money away from the flat base model that generally rewards land ownership.”

IFA Waterford chair Mark Connors, Kilmacthomas, said there needs to be a step away from the current system.

“I think we should be courageous to some extent and embrace some sort of new system, because the system there now is becoming irrelevant and we need to focus the money at people actually doing the farming,” he said.

Tillage farmer Pat Collins, Castlemartyr, called for the highest level possible of coupled payments.

“The derogation going would be nothing compared to the damage that those levels level of payments would do for the tillage sector. We just wouldn’t be able to operate,” he said.

Former IFA Munster vice president Sean O’Leary said the focus should be on putting as high a base as possible on the entitlements. He added that utilisation of CAP funds is becoming a big issue and farmers are becoming more sceptical of schemes.

“The conditionality and the hoops you have to jump through in many cases makes you shy away from them,” he said.

Responding to questions from South Tipperary’s Pat Carroll, IFA European director Liam McHale said he has not seen any impact analysis done on the impact of budget cuts to CAP but cautioned that geopolitical decisions are having a major impact.

“We see big numbers thrown around when it comes to defence and unfortunately, we see the political winds as Russia continues to cause issues on the eastern side of the EU,” he said.

Farmer comments

Tom Burchill, Castlehaven, Co Cork

“A lot of these payments that are coming through the farmer are being passed on to another source afterwards. Is there any inclination in Europe that farmers should go back to the system of being paid to produce food rather than being paid to pass it on?”

Padraig Motherway, Ballymacoda, Co Cork

“Over the years people stepped away from farming, but they were able to keep their payments and that is a loss to agriculture. You shouldn’t be able to retire from farming and keep your payments.”

John Holmes, Bweeng, Co Cork

“Farmers with 50ha or less should be looked after first in this CAP. I would say support the smaller farmer. The €130/ha isn’t worth a curse, you need to double it. Look after the small man first and then over 50ha, you can divide out what is necessary to keep that farmer going.”