Michael Healy-Rae (Kerry, Independent) | Oireachtas source

It has been an horrendous time since the end of September up until last week, where cattle were housed and the tillage men were completely delayed and held up. I am certainly not coming into this House to attack the Minister, but there is one thing I would reinforce and ask him to do. We want to work with him. We should all be trying our best for the farmers of Ireland. I have one genuine suggestion for the Minister which I implore him to take on board. It is not his fault but it is a thing for him to do as Minister. We hear over and over that payments were delayed because of a glitch in the system. The payment could be as simple as a TAMS grant or an ACRES or BISS payment. It could be any one of a variety of schemes. The farmers are being told there is a glitch in the system and their money is held up. Farming works on a tight budget and a tight margin. We need the money coming in so that people can pay it out. Could we ensure that farmers could be guaranteed that if their applications are in, it will not be the Department's fault? In other words, people will get payments on a timely basis and they can be sure of that and rely on it. Being blunt about it, we have a terribly bad reputation in the Department of agriculture for delaying payments. All I ask is that it would be sorted out. The way things are thought up, for example, the fodder scheme, while it is very welcome, in the manner that it has been devised it certainly is not user-friendly. I know plenty of people who could do with it but they have not applied for it. The Minister might look at the statistics and say it is not really needed at all but that is wrong. It is, but people will not apply for it. The very people who are applying for it are owed money by the Department of agriculture already. That is what I am saying about schemes like that. We need to streamline and be more efficient about our duties and pay people on time, every time.

On the red tape and bureaucracy that exists, I know there has to be good governance and oversight but, for God's sake, there is such a thing as taking a thing to the fair and farmers at the moment feel as though they are being taken to the fair and being blackguarded. They are trying to put up with what the Green Party is making the Government do and everything else, and I will not even start on that.

See this speech in context