Mattie McGrath (Tipperary, Independent)
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I feel it incumbent upon me as a rural Teachta Dála to support the Chair on that issue. Mr. Cardiff commented that he has not seen a rise in the number of young farmers following the European Union's investment. That is true. I am a farmer myself, and it is a battle for us to keep our young people in farming. The first reasons for this are the anti-social hours and seven-day working week. During the boom, there were much more lucrative opportunities elsewhere. Some young people have returned since then. However, it is a huge hurdle to get them into the farm colleges, to get them on placements, etc. The biggest killer of all is bureaucracy. Deputy Healy-Rae and I are taking up this issue in our own Parliament. I mean no disrespect to my colleagues here. There are huge issues around farmers not receiving payments. The penalties were mentioned. They are huge and very excessive. I refer to 100% penalties. Yesterday, Deputy Healy-Rae mentioned a farmer participating in a slurry scheme. He raised capital from leasing instead of being financed from his bank, and a 100% penalty was imposed. That is criminal behaviour on the part of the people imposing the penalties. This is a special scheme.

In the same way, many payments have been outstanding for two years. The only excuse the Minister can give for this is to cite computer glitches and errors. The Taoiseach said he would raise it with the Irish Farmers Association, IFA, at its annual general meeting. The IFA is the main farming organisation, whose AGM the Taoiseach was attending that evening. Meanwhile, if the farmer makes the mistake, he is criminalised. Massive penalties are applied, and if the issue is anything to do with taxation, punitive interest and penalties apply. For his payments, however, he has to wait. This affects the small businesspeople and small suppliers who are supplying these farmers. These are honest, decent people who want to pay their way and always do. They cannot do so because of a computer glitch. This is happening in a minority of cases, but those cases are real.

I refer again to penalties and schemes. The latest one I saw was when I was speaking on climate change. A colleague arrived and sat beside me. He opened his laptop, and a picture of a tractor and a plough appeared. That always catches my eye because I am a ploughman, a farmer and a man of the soil. Not a bogman, I note, but a man of the soil. I learned then of a new EU directive stipulating that farmers could now only plough uphill. I do not know who thought of that, or where he came from. Deputy Healy-Rae will know of many areas in Kerry where one could not plough uphill, as a first objection. Second, that will cause far higher emissions and carbon monoxide output through use of diesel. We cannot use a horse because the EU will not allow us. A horse could break wind and cause air pollution. It has gone bonkers.

The Minister for Finance, Deputy Paschal Donohoe, said during the budget debate that a scheme which forced women out of the workforce when they got married was bonkers. Many of the things that come from the EU are bonkers, and to a lot of them are added Irish statutory instruments which are even more bonkers. We are even more zealous in tying ourselves up in red tape, but we keep complaining that there are no young farmers and no production agriculture, only ranches. This must be dealt with. Fair play is fine play with me.

I am not talking about people who deliberately make false claims on commonage, as has sometimes occurred. They must be punished. The ordinary farmer, however, is struggling with machines and equipment. He is trying to upskill himself and his family and keep his farm viable and in the family. Family farmers are the backbone of this country, and they must be supported and protected. They need no special favours, but they must be allowed to breathe, and not be smothered with bureaucracy and farm inspections.

During the talks to form this Government, there was talk of a system of yellow cards and red cards for inspections. Inspections on farms are carried out on the mornings of funerals, when someone has died. That would never happen in the countryside because everyone respects the dead, and a funeral is meitheal. This applies especially in the northern part of my own county. It is atrocious. I live in the southern region, where it is not half as bad. Over-zealous inspections are literally terrorising people who are trying to do their best. The same is true with the restrictions on spreading slurry under Council Directive 91/676/EEC, the nitrates directive, which operates according to calendar dates. It is nonsensical. There can be the finest of weather outside of allowed dates, and a farmer cannot spread slurry.

These schemes were never in the bog or on the farm.