Michael Creed (Cork North West, Fine Gael)
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No. They are being paid as they are being cleared for payment. There is no undue delay. As in Deputy Danny Healy-Rae's case, if the Chairman knows of any individual case we will certainly investigate it.

I will answer questions in no particular order. On the issue of the sheep scheme, which Deputy McConalogue and others raised, in the context of the difference between the 2017 and 2018 provisions, as I understand it, we paid the advance in 2017. That balancing payment for the 2017 scheme will be paid in 2018, as well as providing for whatever level of liability we will have in 2018 on the current applications. The provision is ramping up over 2017 because we did not pay a full scheme in 2017; we paid an advance of the scheme.

Deputy Martin Kenny raised the prospect of doing more in that regard. These schemes are designed and approved by the European Commission on the basis of costs incurred or income forgone so if we were minded, and we must bear in mind that in the rural development programme, RDP, there is not any head room in terms of additional expenditure, to so do in terms of making additional funding available under the sheep welfare scheme, it would have to be for actions carried out by the individual farmer.

I accept the point Deputy makes. This is a sector that stood in line for quite a while. This scheme has been welcomed in respect of its simplicity for farmers to be compliant with and, generally speaking, it is money that is overdue. We will be paying the balancing payment of that 2017 advance in the second quarter of this year and, as he is aware, we opened the scheme for this year to new entrants also, and I believe we are budgeting for in the region of 20,000 applicants for 2018. We originally provided €25 million. That was on the basis of 2.5 million ewes at €10 a ewe. We did not get all the applicants, even when we reopened the scheme in 2018.