Michael Collins (Cork South West, Independent) | Oireachtas source

I thank the Minister for being before us with his officials. I was looking at different savings through the organic scheme, TAMS, forestry and fisheries. The Minister explained where the savings have been made. We are talking about sheep welfare and going from €10 to €12 per ewe. That will not happen this year for farmers who are getting payments. The €1.5 million saving from the organic scheme was mentioned. I have a conflict of interest as my son is an organic farmer. However, I have not seen an increase of any sort in the last 15 or 20 years in relation to the organic scheme, other than the increase of the registration fee for the farmer every year. There is very little to be got out of that and it is difficult to look at €1.5 million being saved and not being pumped back in to participants to encourage them to carry out their organic works even stronger than they are.

The Minister said €3.3 million expenditure was saved from TAMS. There are many people appealing their TAMS and it will be frustrating or upsetting for them to hear there is a saving of €3.3 million when they have a genuine spend and have not been able to get their hands on their money. The €7 million savings in forestry is mainly due to there being no new planting. I accept that the licensing delays were a factor, as the Minister said, but it is astonishing to think that €7 million has been saved because we have not been able to sow forestry. Every opportunity needs to be worked on to resolve that. It is a crisis of huge proportions which will come back to bite us down the road. We are not meeting any targets. We are way off every target set in relation to forestry this year. Somebody needs to put their hand in the air and take full responsibility. The buck stops somewhere. It is not with the landowners or the people who want to fell forestry. It is held up all the way back to the person who wants to sow forestry. There is no confidence among the public in relation to forestry sowing.

In fisheries, €4.9 million was saved, while SFPA stated it had savings of €2 million. It is a tough time for fishermen. Bar the decommissioning and talk of €1 million on the fleet tie-up scheme, there is no compensation out there. I have said for the last two or three years that a fund needs to be put in place for the many inshore fishermen who lost their material or equipment a couple of years ago due to bad storms. There was not a brown cent for these guys and ladies who are trying to fish the seas in difficult times. If we have €4.9 million plus €2 million in SFPA savings, that is a lot of money that could have been tied into a scheme. Maybe a new scheme needs to be started like the rural social scheme which would be much easier for fishermen to get into. Many of them are losing their jobs and scratching their heads at the moment. They need answers and see none coming, only decommissioning, which means even more of them will be outside the system and out of work.

I see the Marine Institute is seeking a once-off allocation of €5 million for data collection.

That is a lot of money for data collection. What kind of data collection is the institute intending to carry out that requires €5 million? Is it looking at data collection in relation to quota that we are not getting out there? Is it going to undertake some kind of research in that area? What is the story? It seems to me that €5 million is a lot of money. Perhaps the institute genuinely needs the money, but I am interested in hearing where it intends to use that money.