Jimmy Deenihan (Kerry North, Fine Gael)

For the past three or four weeks 400 REPS 3 and REPS 4 files are awaiting approval for payment by a district superintendent in the Tralee office for the north Kerry area. The average payment is €8,000 per file. Farmers need this money urgently just to keep going. Many are involved in dairy or beef farming or both. Income from these sectors has collapsed in the past year and most farmers are running their operations at a loss. Hence the importance of these REPS payments, which may be their only source of income for some time to come.

The acting district superintendent retired in 2009 and was not replaced. In November 2008, there were three permanent supervisory agricultural officers, SAOs, and permanent district superintendent based in the Tralee AES office processing and approving these payments. The district superintendent was transferred to Kildare. One SAO retired in November 2009 while the third SAO acted up as district superintendent until his retirement in December 2009. No replacement was appointed to fill these vacancies. One SAO now remains in the Tralee AES office, which is totally inadequate to service REPS for the farming community.

A similar situation exists in the AES office in Killarney where approximately 500 REPS 4 files await payment plus additional REPS 3 payment. The permanent district superintendent in Killarney was transferred to Cork on 5 January 2009 and was not replaced. Currently there is no district superintendent in County Kerry, an area that is heavily dependent on incomes from REPS.

The offer of REPS management for an SAO to upgrade to district superintendent for a number of weeks is not acceptable to the staff concerned. The offer should have been for a minimum of 12 months at least and have included the appointment of a replacement SAO to process the files for the same period if it was to be seriously considered. The current staffing situation in Kerry is a direct result of no effort having been made to fill vacant posts. It seems that Kerry has been ignored and neglected in this instance. The remaining staff are working under extreme pressure in dealing with the increased workload and the verbal complaints from irate and frustrated applicants who have not received payment to which they are entitled within the agreed protocol.

I call on the Minister of State to at least extend the offer of acting up to the current SAO in Tralee for 12 months. If he cannot do that, there is no reason his Department could not pay 75% of the outstanding moneys owed to the almost 1,000 farmers in County Kerry. At least that would carry them over for some period.

See this speech in context