Almost 50% of Ireland’s direct payments under Pillar 1 of the Common Agricultural Policy (CAP) went to just 12% of Irish farmers in 2015, new figures from the European Commission show.
The Commission annually publishes a breakdown of direct payments by Member State and size of payment.
Direct payments are a fundamental part of the CAP and in financial year 2015, direct payments represented 74% of the whole CAP expenditure; worth some €42.2 billion.
Overall, 20% of the beneficiaries of direct payments are receiving 80% of the payments in the EU, the figures released by the Commission show.
Almost 50% of Ireland’s national envelope for direct payments is received by farmers getting over €20,000. Of this number, approximately 4% of farmers are receiving over €50,000 – which is almost equivalent to 15% of total payments.
There are 261 Irish beneficiaries getting over €100,000 in direct payments from the EU, the figures show.
Irish MEP Matt Carthy has said that the figures show that across Europe in 2015, 20% of the beneficiaries of direct payments are still receiving 80% of the payments.
“The largest portion of funding going to a few privileged landowners was something the European Commission had promised to target with 2013 reforms.
“When you look at countries like Denmark and the Czech Republic where there are almost 800 farmers receiving annual payments above €500,000 it is clear that the current system of CAP is still broken.”
The fact that there are still 261 beneficiaries getting over €100,000 in annual direct payments from EU funds while most other farmers struggle to get by, is astounding and morally unjustifiable.
Carthy said that Sinn Fein has argued for years that there should be an upper limit on direct payments of between €50,000 and €100,000 in order to deliver fairness and equality into the system.
CAP Reform
The revision of CAP post-2020 is kicking off with this consultation at EU level and it is issues like this, among other issues like fairness for young farmers, forgotten farmers and disadvantaged area farmers that need to be highlighted in responses by Irish farmers, Carthy said.
“The most unfortunate thing in all of this is that this issue is nothing new. Inequality when it comes to direct payments is something the European Commission has failed to address with successive reforms since the 90s.”
There is now no justification for failing to introduce an upper limit on payments in order to increase payments to those farmers on lower incomes and allow them to sustain themselves into the future.
He said that in the next round of CAP there will be a huge battle to maintain the overall EU agricultural budget and to protect the national envelope coming to Ireland.
“The case of those of us who want to win those battles will be more difficult so long as the gross inequalities within the system persist.
“This consultation is an opportunity for Irish farmers to speak up about the failings in current CAP legislation.
“Over the next few months I will be engaging with farmers and farming organisations to ensure that these issues are addressed,” he said.