I call Deputy McDonald on promised legislation.

I wish to return to an issue the Taoiseach tried to brush off when it was raised by my colleague, Deputy Carthy, and to ask him two questions. Will he confirm to the House that the CAP budget is to be cut by 9% in constant prices compared with the last seven-year multi-annual financial framework, MFF? Can he answer "Yes" or "No"? Is it a matter of fact that there will be a 9% cut compared with the last seven-year MFF?

The Commission's original recovery proposal was for a €15 billion package for rural development. That has been halved to €7.5 billion. Will the Taoiseach confirm that is the case?

In relation to the €15 billion to €7.5 billion, which was in the recovery and resilience fund element, there were two tranches on that during the talks, which were extremely difficult talks. The first would have resulted in a reduction of €124 million for Ireland over seven years. The second cut of €2.5 billion, which makes up the rest of the €7.5 billion, would have brought it up to somewhere closer to €200 million over seven years. I went back to the President of the Council and made it clear that was not acceptable to us. We got a special allocation under the MFF of €300 million over the seven years, which will more than adequately cover the proportional allocation we would have got from the fund, which obviously was for 27 countries over seven years. We have dealt with that in terms of the €300 million allocation we received.

In terms of CAP, obviously there will be a calculation of figures between current and constant pricing.

Overall, CAP has been protected. There will be more flexibilities within it.

I asked a simple question.

I do not propose to get into detailed calculations now.

Others have done so.

Of course, they always do that but I am not going to jump in now with specifics.

They are from the farming community. They represent farmers.

So do we. There were three key elements for us, the Common Agricultural Policy, which we have protected; a special Brexit reserve fund of €5 billion to be used-----

I did not ask about Brexit. I asked about CAP.

Deputy McDonald, please.

That fund is important to farming.

I realise that. The Taoiseach should respond to a straight question with a straight answer.

Deputies, please.

Farming will be one of the areas affected.

We cannot have a debate on the matter.

I apologise.