Mr. Ciaran Staunton:

I am disappointed Deputy Danny Healy-Rae had to leave the meeting before I addressed the some of the issues he raised. I will start, however, by responding to Deputy Martin Heydon as I wish to clarify a matter. While one should never blame the messenger, someone is giving misinformation. For the past two years, a number of people who have returned from the United States and elsewhere have been told they are not eligible to apply for payment from the national reserve because they do not have a green certificate or tax returns for 2013 or 2014. I have received letters on this issue. When it was raised on the floor of the House the Minister of the day stated he was restrained by European Union regulations and his hands were tied. We wrote to a number of Members of the European Parliament on the matter and Mr. Matt Carthy, MEP, wrote back stating there is no European regulation in place that requires a person to have a green certificate before he or she is deemed eligible for payment from the national reserve. Without such a European requirement, a returned emigrant or a person who never left Kildare, Ballycroy or Connemara should have a right to access the national reserve. It is a matter of record that there is no educational or training requirement in the relevant EU regulation.

In addition, the EU regulation does not set out any tax or income requirement. Whether one is a new entrant, young farmer or someone like me who is a little on the wrong side of 40 or 50 years and may be returning from abroad, the EU has dictated that young farmers and new entrants to farming are the priority for the €1.3 billion in funding it provides every year. When the question is asked as to whether a new entrant is a suitable person for farming, a litmus test applies, regardless of whether the person grew up in a rural area and is returning to the country after 15 years abroad.

I examined the list showing the names of the 200 people who receive the largest amounts from the national reserve. They include a sheikh from the Middle East who is worth $18 billion and receives €150,000 from the national reserve. Did he obtain a green certificate and show his tax certificate for 2014? It also features the top six meat processors in Ireland, all of whom receive more than €150,000 per annum. Did they produce green certificates? Are they suitable farmers? I met a man in Louisburgh, County Mayo, the other day who does not have a green certificate but was fit to turn a calf around in a cow's womb the previous night. Is he a suitable farmer?

Many of those who are being denied access to the national reserve are progressive farmers. The other day, a senior official in the Department explained to me that there is an EU regulation in place on the type of farmer who is eligible. I asked him to define this regulation. This is a senior person who works for the Government and decides who is and is not a farmer. I also asked him how many teats a Lanark had. His answer was "four". A Lanark is a type of a sheep which has two teats. This is the person who decides who is suitable to be a farmer. I wonder if the sheikh who receives €150,000 could tell us how many teats a Lanark has. People in Ballycroy and Connemara would certainly be able to answer the question.

According to the programme for Government, the Department will enable more money to reach the people for whom it is intended. The average farmer receives approximately €6,000 or €8,000 if he is lucky. The Government indicated it would reduce the cap on payments from €150,000 to €100,000. As a result, the 300 people who received between €100,000 and €150,000 would have their payments reduced and the saving would be allocated to others. This commitment has not yet been implemented. We have written to the Minister and explained that there is no EU regulation and that the European Union has made clear it wants more young people to enter farming. It has not stated it wants more sheikhs, meat processors, multimillionaire couch farmers and corporate farmers.

On the other points raised, personal public service, PPS, numbers are not a major issue for us because most returning emigrants had PPS numbers prior to leaving the country. An issue was raised in respect of buying a house. A returning emigrant from the United States, the country with which I am most familiar, is caught in the middle. The national credit system in the United States is one of the best in the world and is recognised by many companies. The three main banks in Ireland operate their own credit rating system, under which they can check a person's rating and whether he or she has foreclosed or has been unable to pay bills in the past. They have not yet recognised the international credit systems recognised by most other countries. These allow someone returning to Ireland to provide his or her social security number and credit rating. The banks do not recognise these systems, however.

A person who has just landed in Ireland will not have a guaranteed income. If someone from a rural area wishes to buy something, one of the first questions a banker will ask is how much he or she receives in basic payments because these payments are a guaranteed cheque from the Government that goes straight to the bank. Returning emigrants who have sold a house abroad, for example, in London, before returning to Ireland are penalised by the banks because they will not be considered a first-time buyer, even though they will be buying a property in Ireland for the first time. This means many returning emigrants must put down a deposit of 20% rather than 10% and are penalised again. This is another banking related issue.

Deputy Danny Healy-Rae made two good points about driving licences. For many years, the only form of identification many Irish people carried in the United States was an Irish driver's licence and most police departments accepted this form of identification because it features a photograph. Many emigrants would post their licence home to have it renewed by their parents. This is no longer possible because the licence holder must present in person to have a licence renewed. Many legislators have become concerned about the Trump Presidency. However, this is an issue that could be addressed in Ireland to make life a little easier for Irish emigrants in the United States. Why can someone not present appropriate documentation and have a licence renewed on behalf of a son or daughter? This is not brain surgery because it has been done for generations. I am aware of someone who obtained a licence from the PSNI because he previously held a licence from both jurisdictions and could not get one here.

Senator Rose Conway-Walsh referred to the habitual residency clause. The language used in this area is maddening. The Senator referred to the old days. When I moved to Cricklewood in London I took the ferry to Holyhead. After spending every summer and Christmas with family in Ireland, people must now prove they intend to live on the land they worked and in the place they went to school and may have paid taxes. It is an absolute disgrace that people have to ask any Government agency "An bhfuil cead agam dul abhaile?"

I read the report which was mentioned. It is the second report; the honourable footballer from Kerry had a great report some years ago. We in Mayo forget Kerry footballers' names very fast, if we can. It is a brilliant report, but there is nothing in it about returning immigrants. That is why I say we have been forgotten. I ask the committee to recognise that the plight of returning emigrants should be considered first and foremost. I often write to party members, who then send it across the aisle to the member who deals with diaspora affairs. Diaspora affairs starts when a person leaves the country. It is not a social service agency. There is no agency to assist when one comes back. Diaspora affairs is the agency that needs to address it.

There are no EU regulations to stop anyone in Kerry, returning or otherwise, from not getting their entitlements because of a green certificate or anything else. The idea that there is no money has been clearly stated. The money was supposed to come from a clawback on either the sale or lease of entitlements. Last year the Government position was that any clawbacks had a 50% penalty towards the national reserve. That was for selling entitlements without land. They also said that if a person leased without land, there was to be no clawback. This information is in a parliamentary question that I can send to the committee. Last year, instead of selling them on to people who may be willing to buy them, €19 million worth of entitlements without land transferred hands. Some were good cases, perhaps people with hospital issues. Others were corporate farmers. Of the €19 million, not a penny went back into the national reserve. From the people who sold them and paid a 50% penalty, €13,000 went into the national reserve. I am not certain of this, but the Department of Agriculture, Food and the Marine may have waived the payment. In the agreement with the EU, the Government, the Department of Agriculture, Food and the Marine, and most other member state governments said that if one leased without land one would have to pay a fine towards the national reserve, with the percentage to be decided. In Scotland that fine is 50%. Ireland did not impose a fine. Every time Deputy Danny Healy-Rae asked the Department of Agriculture, Food and the Marine to change something, the Department said that they had to get permission from the EU to do it. Did they get permission from the EU to waive the penalty on leasing entitlements without land? Did they just give a waiver, or did they decide that they did not want to charge a rate of 50%? If they had, they would have recouped €9 million. Was €19 million of entitlements traded between many very rich farmers and some people who had to lease them? There was only roughly 20,000 sold. The take from that last year was €13,000. That is why the well is dry. That is why the sheikh can still get his money but the rural farmer cannot.

Senator Conway-Walsh mentioned that there should be a desk in each of the Departments, dedicated to the diaspora. For many years we have called for a one-stop-shop so that a returning emigrant does not have to go from village to town to get their affairs in order. People in Castlebar are being sent to Portlaoise or someplace else. When we lobbied this Government to have a Minister for the diaspora, it did that. Many years ago we had the same problems while working with illegals. The Department of Foreign Affairs and Trade was more interested in international relations and did not want to touch the illegals issue. Former Taoiseach, Mr. Brian Cowen, did a fantastic job putting a diaspora desk in the Department of Foreign Affairs and Trade. He had to push against the people in power at the time. We asked for a similar desk for returning emigrants. In 2015 it was announced here at the global diaspora forum that this would come into being. It was to be called an interdepartmental committee of the Irish abroad. It was to meet quarterly, consult with other Government Departments, and issue reports. I have never seen any reports. I have seen very few meetings. It is chaired by the Minister of State for the Diaspora and Overseas Development Aid, Deputy Joe McHugh. I am calling for its work not just to be announced on paper, but to actually take place. Cutting silage cannot be announced on paper; you go and you cut it, or you lose it and you will have no fodder. We have a document called Annex X, but that is as good as we have seen from that committee. I am still receiving letters from Ministers asking for more information about it. This was supposed to be in place but still is not.

Everyone has opinions on voting rights. I am gone from Ireland since before a lot of the members were born. However, many Irish people overseas have voting rights for the Oireachtas. If a person went to the right school they can vote in the Seanad elections, no matter what part of the world they are in. Jim Crow could not have created this. A person who has gone to the right third level school can vote on the university panel, even if they are 500 years in Australia. If they are in New York or Santiago they can still vote. No matter the place, there is nothing stopping them. Why is it that going to one university means a person can vote in the Seanad elections, but a qualified carpenter cannot? Does the Constitution recognise two types of citizen? I am not a constitutional scholar, but in no place do I see that special circumstances apply to tradespeople or those who attend certain schools. Under segregation in the south of the United States people had to take a literacy test before being allowed to vote. It is not as if this is not being currently done, so why is it not being expanded? Many European bloc countries have only become democracies in my time. I have seen the lines outside their New York consulates. I saw the lines outside the Moldovan consulate in New York recently. We know there are big parties at the US Embassy here every year. Some of the parties turned into a bit of a wake this year, for obvious reasons. Why is that not expanded? I cannot see why people are frightened of democracy, whether we like it or not - and some of us do not like it at the moment. Why does the person who went to Trinity College Dublin become a better Irish citizen than the person who finished carpentry school?

I think I have finished. My apologies for getting carried away.