Michael Fitzmaurice (Roscommon-Galway, Independent) | Oireachtas source

Mr. Gleeson knows the system inside and out. At the moment, there is a fiasco with ACRES for many farmers. The matter is not being resolved. It is dragging on and on. I know a certain amount of money was given. As part of this thing of looking at the flowers present in an area, the Department might say that it did not get something even though it had been sent in and it may look for money back even though the application had not been looked at properly. ACRES has been a problem. The Department says it will iron out the difficulties or whatever, but why is there no computer system set up so that, in four years' time, we will not have to go into all of this bang again rather than another hullabaloo starting off and running on for another year while everyone fights with each other in trying to get it solved? Why do we not have consistency? Why do not we look at making the scheme, bad as it is, last ten years and starting that computer eight years in to try to get things justified?

On top of that, Mr. Gleeson talks about trying to make things simpler. Conditions are being brought in for the Department but, in fairness to the farmers, there is big debate going on as to what is going to happen with peaty soil or with the derogation. I was talking to a farmer this morning. I did not know this but he is not allowed to plough because he has a derogation. Some of the stuff that is coming out is putting constant pressure on these people. The Department says that it is trying to comply with EU measures, but farmers are getting sick of it. I cannot understand why someone cannot decide to have a scheme and not to change it. If wild bird cover, fenced-in riparian zones and so on were good for the environment for the first five years, it should be good for the next five years. That is what I am trying to say. Is any thought being given to that kind of strategy?