Danny Healy-Rae (Kerry, Independent)
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Regarding the ACRES scheme, what I am being told by all the people I am trying to get payments for is that the system is broken down. We have been involved in plant hire and school bus hire and everything. If something breaks down, it has to be fixed, or else it has to be got rid of. This system has been operating for two years now and it should have been streamlined and fixed long before now, before the Minister ever took office. It is not acceptable that people are waiting for last year's money in the middle of this year. It is going to throw their taxes into disarray. That is one of the issues. I am asking the Minister to pay the people. The Department is getting the money and it has it to pay it out. I cannot understand what is wrong.

The issue of TB is surely a serious one. I am in the same position as Deputy Aird on this. I know farmers who went down last October and November with herds of milking cows and whatever they got at that time. One farmer had 42 cows and when he went to replace them in April, he could only buy 28 for what he had got, because the price of cattle and everything else has gone up. That man's income is way down for this year and the years to come because he cannot get back to the level at which he was. Heifers and the whole damn lot are gone. It has to be recognised, at this stage, that TB is by and large spread by deer and badgers. There is no control. We have 27,000 acres of a national park in Kerry. They are roaming wild out of that park, day in and day out. They are hurting people on the road and they are making smithereens of cars. It is absolutely terrible.

On top of that, is the Department going to continue the practice of buying up farms against young farmers in Kerry? Three were bought last year, against local farmers. Some €440,000 was paid for a farm in Kilgarvan that was only worth a small bit more than €200,000. This was done against local farmers who were trying to expand. I ask the Minister to desist from this practice.