Mr. Padraic Finnegan:

It is a five-year scheme so a farmer cannot leave after a year. Another batch are groomed and come to the scheme but they leave after five years. The statistics prove that is what happens. If the scheme was right, people would join and we would have as good an organic set-up as anywhere as our country is ideal for it. As some people present have stated, the scheme as it is structured is an absolute disgrace. There should be an urgent review with a bit of common sense injected into it. We are the most inspected and watched scheme.

There is any number of people to watch us, to hound us and to damn us into the ground, but there is nobody at all to help us. Even if, on that point, we want to go somewhere, if we want to take any case anywhere or if a person has a problem, there is very little for those working in agriculture in this country. We have seen how in the past year gardaí can now use the Labour Court, and rightly so. I would say that agriculture this minute is probably one of the few-----