Michael Creed (Cork North West, Fine Gael)

I thank the Ceann Comhairle for permitting my colleagues and me to raise this matter and I thank the Minister for being here to take the debate in person.

There is very little I can add to what has been said by my colleagues. To say that applicants who are awaiting payment are alarmed is an understatement. It must be emphasised that in complying with the nitrates directive and in availing of this grant scheme, there is no financial gain for the farmers who have borrowed significant amounts of money. They are merely complying with their legal obligations, assisted by a grant scheme introduced by the Minister's Government.

The reality is that this money will pass through the hands of the applicants only on its way to the bank managers who approved these farmers for matching funds to complete the works. Loan facilities were approved to carry out the works on the basis of the grants that would be available.

Reference was made by previous speakers to bailing out the banking sector. Money makes the world go round. If one is talking about a figure of approximately €400 million as the liability for which the Department stands, this by itself, if denied to the banking institutions, will create a liquidity problem for them. I urge the Minister to act and I hope he can allay our fears. I hope he can tell us that he is in negotiation with the Minister for Finance or that he has concluded negotiations with him.

I am alarmed that the Taoiseach said in the House yesterday that no Supplementary Estimate was envisaged. The prospect of robbing Peter to pay Paul is raised if the Minister has to fund this scheme out of departmental resources. In addition to the disproportionate cuts that agriculture has already been asked to carry in the recent budget, that is a scenario that we cannot countenance.

I hope the Minister is in an position to allay our fears. It is incredible that he was not in a position to predict this situation on the basis of precedent. There were 42,000 applicants. An average payment, established from existing grants, was to be in the region of €33,000. A total of 17,000 had already been paid and approximately 17,000 remained to be paid. The mathematics are quite simple. The Minister had an allocation of €125 million which was entirely inadequate.

I can assure the Minister that if he does not pay this grant at its due time to members who are due their payments, it will make the protests that arose in respect of the disadvantaged area scheme, the installation aid scheme and the early retirement scheme look like the teddybears' picnic party. This issue will not go away.

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