Willie Penrose (Longford-Westmeath, Labour) | Oireachtas source

He has done enough damage in his own Department without putting his hands on others.

I am somewhat perplexed about what happens when a limited and defined sector like the tillage sector has a particular problem associated with an unanticipated event. It could not have anticipated it. In 2015 there were big yields but low margins in the tillage sector. That covered a multitude. However, there has been a total collapse in 2016, particularly on the western seaboard, from Deputy Charlie McConalogue's county down. It has even stretched to County Longford and across the midlands. Surely it is not beyond the Department to make a particular case to the European Commission. The case that needs to be made is that this problem requires an input and the Commission should play a role in that regard. The impact of weather events on our potential means that they rank among the extraordinary force majeureevents. If farmers in the sector have lost on average €25,000 per annum, or €100,000 in the past four years or so, where is this going to go? Will there be a grain sector? This will have huge knock-on effects on other areas also. I refer not only to the cattle, beef, sheep and milk industries but also to those involved in malting, etc. Can we not claim exceptional circumstances in this context? I understand the Minister's point about working capital. Certainly, a rate of 2.95% is an awful lot better than what has been available. It is a little over one third of what was being charged by some of the commercial banks for a while. We had better be careful to acknowledge that it is helpful. Can the Minister not stretch it? I made a similar suggestion when I was looking for something different for the mushroom industry. Like Deputy Charlie McConalogue, I understood the farming organisations were looking for a particular crisis fund of up to €15,000 per farmer that could be distributed. Perhaps I was wrong in that understanding. Perhaps they have two ways of submitting things. I might have been wrong in how I interpreted the matter.