Michael Fitzmaurice on CAP cuts, land use and farmers' rights

Well, you're right, Tom. I think the first thing that needs to be outlined is, there was a song one time, Armoured Terrors and Tanks and Guns, that's what Europe now looks to be more interested in putting the money into, going by, now, bear in mind one thing, this is the first throw of the dice, so we don't know how it's going to go, and the question was asked earlier, Tommy asked it, we don't know for the simple reason, this is going to be like horsetail, to be like selling a base to Nova and back or whatever, and you'll finally agree in it, but, that's the first thing I want to say, so I'm going to go through a few questions, to everyone you might answer this one, later on when you go talking, just say that there is a 20% cut, if a Minister is faced with a 20% cut, and hopefully not, I'd be of the opinion we need national funding, but if there is a cut in the overall, where do we go, do we go at the top payments, or what way would you envisage it, each farmer organisation, to explain what their views on that is. Nataline, you in your submission, you said it may reduce competitiveness, you might explain that, and on top of that, you might just go through short, or in a small way, about, basically, where land is being used for solar, and land is being used for other, be it anaerobic digestion, that the benefit of that isn't coming to the agricultural sector, the agricultural sector will be still sticking out. Colm, you've, on your submission, going by what I'm reading, say a couple payments, you'd be opposed to them, can you explain that, and you have a question mark, about stock and density, you might go into that. ICOS, what is the knock-on effect so far, in your belief, with 240 or 50,000 cows gone, sheep numbers reducing, where do you see this going, with the way it's heading at the moment? To Sean, you talk about the demise of rural Ireland, if this happens, and I'd like to know your thoughts on the proposal at the moment. My understanding was that an entitlement is a property right, and you, both of you can come in on this, that it was a property right, but that that property right is going to be extinguished now for an entitlement, or for a, yeah, I will, yeah, let each of them write it down, and I can come back then. Yeah, that property right is going to be extinguished, or the entitlement, and it's going to be per hectare. I'd like to know your views on that. To Dennis, in relation to the dairy sector, in relation to, say, are you concerned, and I know I mightn't be just in this, but I need to know, are you concerned that the Habitats Directive is now being used as the brush to beat the derogation farmer, and John will know this is probably better than anyone, but is there a danger that the environmentalists now will jump on the bandwagon, and it is going to affect every farmer in Ireland if this starts, and that it has to be nipped at the bud before it starts? And to Owen, what's my question for Owen? Oh, yeah, share information. You give us a document here, Owen. You might just go through the different parts of that document for us, but also, what's your view on if there's less of a budget, where are younger farmers going to pick up the slack in land? And I think I'll just leave them, I think I've everyone covered at that for the time being, but I have more questions for you after a while. We can start, Jane, to quickly answer a few. Mine is probably the quickest. Reducing competitiveness is really straightforward. From a business point of view, competitiveness or maintaining competitiveness requires investment and resources. You can't keep reducing a budget and expect farmers to become competitive in that way. I mean, we've just achieved recently a protected geographical indicator for pasture-fed Irish beef. It's going to be hard to do that with solar panels. You know, the whole thing has been set up to reduce the quality of the investment that's going into food production. I don't see how we could maintain competitiveness in that case. And in terms of land use issues, we're undergoing a land use review. The direction of travel on that seems to be that we're going to allocate, you know, best use cases to certain types of land. We don't really know what the shape of that will be looking like. A lot of farmers are very nervous about it. You know, to start allocating certain types of farming, certain types of activity to certain types of land. But the fact remains that there is huge competition for farming land within farming, but from outside farming as well. And at no point is any of that kind of being addressed. And in terms of competition, you know, I'd invite Eamon to speak to that too, on how some of the climate and things that we're doing are reducing our competitiveness in the beef sector. Because there's a lot of questions to answer. Yeah, I just mean very quickly. I suppose with competitiveness, farmer confidence is very important. And one thing that we would like to see excluded from the next cap would be the whole notion of clawbacks. Where, say, for example, in the past, farmers would have entered a suckler scheme and then maybe fall foul in year five and they end up looking for 50 grand back off that farmer, which is basically trying to put them out of business. Just a quick one. If the budget is less, if a minister has to make a coach, where does he go? Well, just want to come to that in a second. And I suppose the other thing to do with competitiveness is that recently we've decided to ban the use of preliure in Ireland. You know, and other countries haven't. You know, so that's something that's going to obviously affect competitiveness. We have a scheme in this country devised by ICBF, which has a large bearing on a suckler herd. Right? I think the biggest beneficiary of EU money was ICBF getting 23 million in 2023. The quality of our suckler herd is actually reduced. There's no independent evaluation of ICBF. So we would like to see future schemes, ICBF not having that role, and the money go to farmers, and they'll be allowed to farm and keep the best stock. Where the money should go, we think it should go to the farmers. You know, this thing of having to have a Tagusk advisor and having to have pay two or three other quangos out of the money farmer gets, and also the amount of money that goes in admin, is all cutting down the money to the farmer. And I think we'd like to see figures on what percentage of money in Ireland goes to admin. The questions that you directed over were in relation to the coupling, Deputy. Under Article 11 of Regulation 560, again, there is provision this time for coupled income support. Our position within the INHFA is against the principle of coupling because in order to support a coupled option, it would require a further linear cut to all farmers top line or from off the top before you start to distribute an area-based payment, for example. So, however, it is provided for under Article 11, and if it was an option that Ireland in their CAP strategic plan were to support, well, then our position would be that the sector sector and the sheep sector, both vulnerable sectors, should be the sectors to be looked at and prioritised. But our position is we wouldn't be in favour of a coupled payment. It brings back... We're decoupled from production for some time. It will bring back retention periods and probably end up distorting trade and probably not giving it back to the primary producer enough, Deputy. The other one on stock and densities, I'm hoping that this is a type in error in the draft that came from Brussels. I have brought it to the attention of the CAP consultation chair. It's in Annex 2 of one of the regulations where we see the stock and density increase back up from the 0.1 livestock units per hectare in the case of sheep up to 0.15 and the succular cow going from 0.8 to a livestock unit. Thank you for moving on to the clear.