Mr. John Ryan:

I want to thank the Cathaoirleach and members for the invitation. I am living and farming in Shannonbridge, west Offaly. I will give a quick briefing of the situation facing me and others in our area. I have a family-run farm. I am married to Sinéad, with three children. We are all involved in the farm, which is a dairy and beef farm. Since July, we have roughly 40 ha, up against 100 acres, under water. Our losses accumulate to hundreds of bales of silage or hay. We have numerous acres lost for grazing as well.

Over the years, we have upgraded our farm. We have moved with the times. We put massive investments in and we have mortgages like every other young family. These have to be paid. I have a young fellow going to college. He turned around the other day and said: "Listen, Daddy, I know I am going back. The pressure is on, we want to keep a good herd together, I will take a year out." That should not happen. He should not have to say that, and I do not want him saying that. It is never spoken about in the house but he hears it going on in the locality about the financial losses that are accruing the whole time.

Another massive thing that a lot of people are overlooking is the horrid mental health effect of this whole thing. Matters financial lead to matters mental. It is getting to people in our area.

Another point I have to make is around a comment that was recently made on a radio station. A constituent in our area made a comment about the sacrifice of land. I just wonder was this a trial year, or is our land going to be sacrificed? We have to know. We have youngsters coming behind us who would like to farm, and they would like to know if there is an opportunity there, or do we educate them for America or Australia? It is sad actually.

We are very grateful for the fodder scheme.

It is badly needed. There is no doubt about that. Unfortunately, it just falls well short for a good few people. It is very welcome all the same. Personally, I have already spent four times the allocated money I would be hoping to get on trying to recoup what has already been lost, and we still do not have enough. We are still trying to source.

On our cattle situation, as I said, we run a lot of beef cattle along with our dairy. We have taken out any excess stock we have and sold them. Believe me, when we bring out our stock to the marts with the address we have, we are not going to get well-paid because these cattle cannot come home. That is just a brief summary of mine and hundreds of other farmers and neighbours of mine. I thank the Cathaoirleach and members for their time. I am open to any questions anyone has to ask.