The proposed agreement between farmers and the Government on land to be acquired for the State's road building programme applies only to land required for national roads under the National Development Plan 2000 to 2006.
Compulsory Purchase Orders for the redevelopment of the Dublin Docklands, urban renewal, the Corrib gas pipeline or other items such as land required for State forests or harbours is not included. It is, as IFA leaders acknowledged last night, "a very specific deal".
Farmers had withdrawn access to their land for National Roads Authority personnel and county council staff in protest at what they said was a draconian system of land acquisition which effectively gave the Government the ability to take the land and argue about the price later.
Unfortunately for the taxpayer these draconian regulations are now relaxed somewhat, but only for those landowners involved in the current roads programme.
The farmers whose protest was costing the State about £1 million (€1.27 million) a week for the last five months - a figure which adds at least £20 million to the £80 million (€101 million) estimated by the Minister for the Environment yesterday - will now, hopefully, allow access to their lands for road planning.
In addition to the extra money they will have their professional fees covered from the moment the council serves a notice to treat, the council or NRA will be given a deadline in which to respond to farmers' claims, there is to be a defined deadline for payment 30 days after evidence of title, and all fencing is to be provided.
Changes to the valuation scheme itself, the full replacement cost of building, severance and damages payments are to be topped up by a special payment of €5,000 per acre. In all the draft agreement has 29 clauses which run to six pages.
In fairness there were issues in the Compulsory Purchase Scheme which deserved to be cleaned up. In some cases farmers were awarded lower compensation for the compulsory purchase of their land after having appealed against the price offered by the CPO process.
In one notable case a farmer was offered £51,000 (€64,000) for his land by the council.
After an appeal the arbitrator gave him £17,000 (€21,500) less and the arbitrator's decision was binding.
However while that process will now be changed for the farmers dealing with the National Development Plan roads, it remains in place for everybody else.
Indeed the influence of the farmers in this case was such that the NRA which is nominally supposed to approve the deal, was yesterday asked for its opinion by the media, before it had been told a deal had been put together.