Sinn Féin’s agriculture spokesperson Claire Kerrane is very clear on where her party wants direct payments to go in the future.

“We support full convergence,” she said. “I think that had to be done in the lifetime of the CAP; it hasn’t been done.”

Convergence is where high-value entitlements are cut by a specified percentage, with the money saved being redistributed to farmers with lower-value entitlements.

First introduced in the Ciolos reforms in 2016 at 60%, the process continued with 85% convergence in the current round of reforms to be achieved gradually by 2026.

“For smaller and medium farmers, they’re going to be hit hardest by the derogation change – any future changes. It’s really important for our farming families and rural communities, and they’re our priority.

“When you look at the big guys at the top, we need to be looking primarily at a fairer distribution of the CAP. The limit of €60,000 is really important as well.

“We have people in this country getting hundreds of thousands of euros from CAP; they don’t need it frankly. We know the names of people, some of them not even in the country, getting this money – yet, we have family farmers relying on the CAP to get them from one day to the next.

“They’re the farmers we’re very clear in saying we want to support. The family farm model must be protected and sustained; 70,000 farmers would benefit from full convergence. Currently, 16% of the payments goes to 1% of the people. That’s not fair.”