Éamon Ó Cuív (Galway West, Fianna Fail) | Oireachtas source

The situation is extraordinary in that we spent years negotiating for access to the hills in Sligo. Deputy Scanlon knows about it. The main area that got burnt in Connemara for which people were penalised is a very small commonage with an enormous number of shareholders. The Department said the fines should have been deducted from the payment. I do not believe that should have happened because the shareholders had nothing to do with burning it. This has very little to do with the fact that the land was not available for a month or two and more to do with the fact that somebody carried out an illegal activity.

Let us suppose the shareholders had decided to reduce the commonage and follow the Department's instruction. If the total payments were approximately €1,000, how much would it have cost for one year to pay somebody to walk the hill and measure it so that it was known what deduction to make? Let us take the average planner in Galway or Athenry coming out to Connemara to measure it all up carefully. It would probably have cost 30% of the total payments the farmers would have got. That is outrageous and unfair.

I do not believe there was not a legal way out of this. When I was in the Department of Agriculture, Food and the Marine, I always admired that when something needed to be done, a clause, a way and a means would always be found. The departmental officials who are present are very fair-minded people. They tell us that it is the law. I have heard about EU auditors forever and, as the man says, they do not frighten me. Unless there is big cheating, I presume even a European auditor would not fine Ireland for paying farmers for something they did not do. I presume the Commissioner would not allow that kind of bad publicity to fall on his head.

If this situation cannot be corrected retrospectively, I am sure the Department can get the Commissioner to change his mind now and say that where land was burnt, it was not caused by the landowner and there is no suspicion on him or her, he or she gets paid. Is it possible to get the Commissioner to change that rule going forward so that this crazy anomaly is addressed? I am not the expert on this but if it has to be changed in Europe, let us tell the Commissioner, Mr. Hogan, who understands this scene better than most because he had responsibility for hillwalking before he hillwalked to Brussels. He understands its importance to the economy, because that is where the real problem will arise.