Michael Ring (Mayo, Fine Gael)

I thank Deputy Calleary for allowing me two minutes of his time. He and I attended a meeting recently in Castlebar and he is quite correct that there was much anger there from farmers about the REPS 4 scheme. As Deputy Calleary said, 1,353 farmers from Mayo are in that scheme and 212 have been paid to date. This is a very important scheme for the west. REPS is a good scheme and it has worked. We now have REPS 4. We should know by now all the difficulties and all the problems from the three previous schemes. We are encouraging farmers and asking them to be environmentally friendly and they have taken well to the scheme. Many of the people have paid their planners and many are under financial pressure and waiting for their cheques. Like Deputy Calleary I do not understand what is the problem. The local offices will say they have the plan and in some cases the plan has been sent on for payment. For some reason they are sent back again and their area aid is checked. It looks like a stalling tactic to me because the money is not there and this would be wrong because these farmers have entered into the scheme in good faith. They have been good farmers and have been good for the environment and the scheme has been excellent.

I concur with Deputy Calleary. The recent budget and the recent announcement about farming was anti-west. There is no doubt but the farmers in the west paid a bigger price than farmers over rest of the country. I hope they have now paid their price and in the forthcoming budget they will be protected. We want to see these farmers and their plans dealt with immediately and that payment made to these farmers immediately. I am asking the Minister of State to intervene personally with his Department to try and get these payments out and to resolve whatever problems exist. Whether it is a staff problem or a problem with the scheme itself, the Minister of State should deal with it. I am asking him to intervene tomorrow to try and get something done. As Deputy Calleary said, the IFA will be raising this issue tomorrow because they have got the blast from the farmers just as we have. All we want is for this scheme to continue and to work and for farmers to be paid.

See this speech in context