I wish to be associated with the congratulations to the Minister for Foreign Affairs and Trade, Deputy Coveney, on becoming Tánaiste, to Deputy Humphreys, on her move to the Department of Business, Enterprise and Innovation and to Deputy Madigan, on her promotion to Cabinet.

The issue I wish to raise with the Tánaiste relates to agriculture.

This is an area with which he is very familiar, given his previous stewardship of the Department of Agriculture, Food and the Marine. I am sure he is aware of the pressures on farming family incomes and the various challenges facing the sector not only because of the inclement weather over the course of the past year, with a fodder crisis facing many farmers in particular parts of the country, but also as a consequence of developments internationally, including the threat posed by the current Commission negotiations with the South American beef-producing countries in Mercosur and the very real challenges posed by Brexit.

The particular issues I wish to focus on today are the communiqué published yesterday on the post-2020 future of the Common Agricultural Policy, CAP and, second, the question of spending under the current CAP programme until 2020. Fianna Fáil very much welcomes the communiqué in many of its aspects, particularly the focus on small and medium-sized family farms and the agreement that the reduction in the maximum payment under the basic payment scheme will not happen until after 2020. However, the key focus when considering the future of CAP must be on its budget. Will the Government ensure every effort is made to protect the CAP budget post-2020, given that it makes up 75% of average Irish farm incomes? In addition, will the Government undertake to ensure direct contributions are increased in order to achieve that objective?

In regard to spending under the current CAP programme, the Government is clearly failing to live up to the promises that were made, including by the Tánaiste when he was Minister for Agriculture, Food and the Marine. During his tenure in that office, he gave a clear undertaking that €1.4 billion would be spent on the various schemes, including, for example, the green low-carbon agri-environment scheme, GLAS, an announcement that was welcomed by all the farming organisations. However, replies to parliamentary questions I have submitted in recent weeks and months indicate that by the end of 2021, when all participants in GLAS have been paid the full amounts owing to them, just over €1 billion will have been spent on the programme, which is €380 million less than what the Tánaiste, as Minister for Agriculture, Food and the Marine, promised the expenditure would be. Those outstanding moneys should be directed towards reopening GLAS, providing additional funding for the areas of natural constraint, ANC, scheme, and bringing the suckler cow payment under the beef genomics and data programme, BGDP, up to €200.

Will the Tánaiste address these two points in his reply, namely, the future of CAP funding and, second, the failure of the Government to live up to its standing commitments under the various schemes?

It is good to have an opportunity once again to talk about agriculture. In regard to the future of CAP, the Commissioner for Agriculture and Rural Development, Mr. Phil Hogan, has managed this issue in a way that is politically intelligent. He has already launched a document on the future of CAP, which will allow us to have that discussion early in the context of the negotiation that will undoubtedly take place around the multi-annual financial framework for the EU budget post-2020. This affords us an opportunity to address, at an early stage, the need to prioritise CAP.

Payments under the Common Agricultural Policy contribute hugely to the economy, with the current round representing some €12 billion in payments to Irish farming families over its lifetime. That is broken down into direct payments and payments under the various rural development schemes, some of which the Deputy mentioned. The last round of CAP facilitated a very ambitious transformation of agriculture in Ireland in terms of recognising environmental responsibilities, improving technology within the sector, and exploiting the extraordinary and sustainable opportunities in this country for growth and expansion in agriculture and farming generally. We want to continue that progress into the next round of CAP. We have an Irish Commissioner who understands that thinking, but it will be up to the Government to form alliances across the European Union with other countries which value and prioritise the supports that allow us to have a sustainable and growing food sector and to support farming families into the future. That is partially a job for me as well as being a job for the Minister for Agriculture, Food and the Marine, Deputy Creed, and, at the highest level of EU summits and so on, a job for the Taoiseach. We must seek to focus on how money will be spent in the future, particularly given the significant reduction in available EU funds that will arise due to the departure of the United Kingdom. Brexit is estimated to create a shortfall in funding of between €12 billion to €14 billion per year, which is one of the pressing reasons that agriculture and the future CAP must be prioritised from our perspective.

In regard to the domestic delivery of particular schemes, I can get back to the Deputy if he has specific questions. The Department of Agriculture, Food and the Marine has, year after year, undertaken a very ambitious programme of roll-out and increased expenditure during the lifetime of the rural development programme. The Minister is anxious to deliver on that undertaking.

In the context of the Food Wise 2025 targets and given that the agrifood sector is our largest indigenous employer, it is crucial that we work with our European partners to plug the gap in funding that will arise after the UK leaves the Union, which could potentially amount to some €3 billion under the CAP budget, and that we live up to our responsibility to contribute more if necessary.

Will the Tánaiste comment specifically on current Government spending under the CAP programme up to 2020? As Minister for Agriculture, Food and the Marine at the time, he committed to spend €1.4 billion under GLAS. It is crystal clear, following replies to parliamentary questions in recent weeks, that the Department will fall €380 million short of delivering on that promise. It is absolutely unacceptable that the Government should not live up to the promise made by the Tánaiste, when he was in the Department, and on which the now Minister for Agriculture, Food and the Marine, Deputy Creed, is obliged to follow through. There are other things that can be done with that funding, including, as I suggested, increasing the disadvantaged payment through the ANC scheme, reopening GLAS and enhancing payments for suckler cows under the BGDP. Will the Tánaiste, working with the Minister, Deputy Creed, ensure the promise he made is lived up to and that funding is delivered? Farmers must not be shortchanged on what was promised to them.

The straight answer to that question is "Yes". We will ensure farmers are not shortchanged and that all the available funding under the rural development plan is fully drawn down for a whole series of schemes, including GLAS, the targeted agricultural modernisation scheme, the sheep welfare scheme, the beef genomics and data programme, the organic farming scheme, the knowledge transfer programme and so on. There is a multitude of schemes through which farmers receive support. It is a key priority for us to draw down all available funds, and Ireland is good at doing that. We will ensure we do the same this time around.

The total expenditure envisaged under the agri-environment scheme, including GLAS, over the lifetime of the scheme is €1.4 billion. That will include transitional funding for remaining commitments arising from the agri-environment measures in the Rural Development Programme 2007-2013. There is a continuation of some of those schemes. It is not accurate to say there will be a pool of €300 million plus left on the table which we should reallocate to some other schemes. That is not how the schemes work.