John O'Mahony (Mayo, Fine Gael)

I thank the Ceann Comhairle for allowing me, along with my colleagues, to raise this important issue. It is an important but a simple one. Thousands of farmers around the country had to work day and night to meet the deadline of 31 December for the completion of the work on the projects under the farm waste management scheme. They took out loans based on the grants to which they are entitled. The Minister and the Government voted down the motion introduced by Deputy Creed and other members of the Fine Gael Party last October to extend the date for the completion of the works.

On making representations on behalf of our constituents in recent weeks, we were told by Department officials that the Minister had suspended payments under the scheme. The reasons for this were revealed in The Sunday Tribune last weekend when it emerged that the Minister totally underestimated the money needed to cover payments in respect of the approved applications.

How could the Minister have got it so wrong? I heard him state on "Morning Ireland" on Monday that he underestimated the late rush of applications. Given that he was well aware of the number of applications approved, how could he have underestimated the cost involved? For the Minister to say that the large demand took him by surprise can be compared to a person selling 20,000 tickets for a football match and then being surprised when 20,000 people turn up. If the deadline had been extended, the irony is that the work could have been done in a more orderly fashion and the Minister would not have been hit with all of the costs coming down the tracks at the one time.

The Minister said he will honour his commitments by way of some form of deferred payment. With banks putting pressure on farmers, deferred payments are not acceptable. Farmers need their money now in order to get the banks off their backs. The perception on the ground is that the Minister's Government bailed out the banks for their misadventures. All we ask here tonight is that the farmers get what they are entitled to get. I call on the Minister to do the honourable thing and pay the hard-pressed farmers the money to which they are entitled.

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