Mr. Michael Silke:

I thank the Chair, and we are very grateful to get this meeting here this evening, and we thank the committee for its efforts in meeting us here. I would also like to thank Deputy Claire Kerrane for her efforts in organising the meeting.

We are from the Save Our Shannon Organisation. It is an organisation that represents farmers in counties Galway, Offaly, Roscommon, Westmeath and further afield. We have been very hard hit this year. In our submission, it states that there are 7,000 acres of meadow gone, and 7,000 acres of grazing gone in that specific area. It is a disaster area, really. There is no question about that. The flooding started with us when we had a major flood on St. Patrick's Day. That was carried on. We could not get the cattle into our Callows until the first week of June. Then we were seriously flooded again from 10 to 15 June. We got about a month to five weeks out of the Callows in the grazing area. The meadow areas were a total washout. We got absolutely nothing whatsoever out of those, so our land has been destroyed the whole year.

We can look today at what is happening. Farmers have no fodder. The guys who were normally grazing the Callows had to put their cattle out on their silage ground at home to try and keep their cattle going, and they have no fodder. There is a very serious situation evolving down there.

I thank the Tánaiste and the local Deputies whom we met down in Athlone back in September, and I would like to compliment them on delivering the package yesterday. On the package that was delivered, while it is a good package in many respects, the 15 ha issue is a major issue because a lot of farmers have lost very heavily. As well as that, there is no talk about grazing. The farmers in the grazing areas, as I have outlined to the committee, have been equally at a loss. They got a month on the Callows this year, and they are under serious pressure, as well as being in with the meadow at the minute.