Mr. Michael Silke:

On the number of hectares that should be eligible, 15 ha might sound like a lot of land but that is probably the average amount farmers have lost. Most farmers, especially full-time ones, will have lost considerably more. If that figure could be raised by even about 25 ha, that would give everyone an opportunity. The payment, rather than being €4,800, would be in the region of €6,800 or €7,000. For a farmer who is losing €30,000 or €40,000, which is what full-time farmers losing in buying fodder and meal this year, they would not have had to it buy it if they had not been flooded. If someone were getting €7,000 or €8,000, that would be much closer to what farmers are losing than is the €4,800 at the moment. The increase in hectares is crucial, as is the allowance to include grazing land as well as meadow land.

In fairness, I do not know whether farmers along the Little Brosna are included, but I know all the farmers along the Little Brosna and they are badly affected. I do not know all the farmers up the River Suck but I know an awful lot of them, and Deputy Fitzmaurice will know them too. A lot of them are badly affected and I would like them to be included. There are also pockets of farmers in counties Leitrim and Longford, and I do not think any differentiation should be made because it has been a disastrous year. I have never seen a Shannon flood in the middle of the summer such as that this year. There was a serious flood on St. Patrick’s Day and it was not gone until nearly June. It was the first week in June before farmers put their cattle on this land. It is laughable if you think about it. If dairy farmers in Cork said they were not going to graze their land until the first week of June, people would ask what they were at, but that was the reality we were in. We do not have a choice. One can say nature is doing this to us, but nature is not doing this to us. Failure by the Government is what is doing it to us.