Vol. 407 No. 9
120 Mr. Deenihan asked the Minister for Agriculture and Food if he will outline the criteria the Government used to reclassify the disadvantaged areas to determine which areas should be included in their present submission to the EC; and if this criteria was the same as that which was used on previous applications.
The criteria used in the proposal to the EC to reclassify less severely handicapped areas to more severely handicapped status were (a) land quality, (b) low farm income i.e. family farm income for farm worker not exceeding 40 per cent of the national average family farm income, (c) high dependence on agriculture i.e. more than 40 per cent of the working population engaged in farming. Land equity was the criterion used in the previous survey for this purpose.
In addition, all existing mountain sheep grazing areas were proposed for reclassification to less severely handicapped status on the basis of the five criteria used for designation of new areas i.e. (1) percentage of ploughed land less then 7.8 per cent, (2) stocking rate of less than one adult bovine livestock unit per hectare, (3) family farm income per farm worker not exceeding 80 per cent of national average family farm income, (4) population density of not more than 27 people per square kilometre, (5) at least 30 per cent of working population engaged in agriculture. These designation criteria were the same as those used in the previous survey.
