Mr. Aidan O'Driscoll:

One of the important things is that we have an appeals process. This process was airily dismissed in some of the evidence given to the committee. Every year, thousands of farmers use our internal appeals process, as the Deputy will know, on payments and so on. In the case of payments, 34% of appeals on our internal appeals system are successful. Very importantly, there are also independent appeals systems. The Ombudsman is available. It has been argued that an agriculture ombudsman should be established. The Ombudsman is in place and has the remit. What then are we talking about?

To address an extremely important issue, some of the allegations made by these people against our staff are criminal offences. We have the Garda to investigate criminal offences. Did they go to the Garda? Did members ask them? This is an interesting point. I know of one of them who went to the Garda but the complaint was dismissed. In some of the other cases, the issues have been raised in various forums and thrown out. These issues have been recycled again and again and I understand the reason they make headlines.