Brendan Smith (Cavan-Monaghan, Fianna Fail)

Like Deputy Sherlock, I have spoken to people who were in the process of preparing their applications, whether under the early retirement scheme or the young farmers' installation scheme, and I know of the disappointment and the break in planning for handing on the farm to the next generation that results. There is never an easy time to suspend or, as has happened in the past, to abolish schemes. This is a suspension of the scheme. When speaking to public representatives, farm organisations and individual farmers I indicated to them that I have asked the Department to bear in mind that when we are in a position to reopen the scheme, the people who had been in the process of preparing applications for submission to the Department should be the first to be processed and considered.

Over the past few months there has been a considerable increase in the number of applications submitted under the young farmers' installation scheme. As Deputy Sherlock knows, there have been a number of early retirement schemes, in the first of which more than 10,000 people participated, while there have been a few thousand participants in the more recent scheme. The figure of €48 million to be paid out next year under the early retirement scheme is significant, as is the €9 million that we have——

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