Michael Ring (Mayo, Fine Gael) | Oireachtas source

I will take just one minute. I have two issues I want to raise with the Minister. One relates to TB and the cost factor. This has been the longest running industry in the past 30 years in this country and the time has come for us to get a handle on it. It is wrong that the taxpayers of this country are paying so much money every year for this industry. That is what I call it because people have made an industry out of it and it is wrong. Farmers are paying. The taxpayers are paying. Everybody is paying. I would like to know how the Minister is going to try to curtail it.

The other question, briefly, relates to seafood processors. A scheme has been set up in the Department. I will write to the Minister during the week about it. The other schemes that were set up are working very well but this scheme is not because of the rules and regulations governing how the scheme is set up. This industry has gone through a very difficult time with exports and trying to get the product into the UK, France, and everywhere else. They are not able to provide the raw material in this country and it is creating a big problem for them. A lot of these processors are in very serious trouble. The Minister must modify the existing scheme because processors must get accounts for 2019 and 2020. That is when we were in the height of Covid. There was another scheme for fishermen and the same criteria that applied to it should be used for this scheme. That is the reason people are not taking it up. They need the money. They need a scheme and they are glad one is there but I ask the Minister to look at the rules and regulations in regard to it. I will not hold up the meeting any longer.