Simon Coveney (Cork South Central, Fine Gael) | Oireachtas source

Deputy Ó Cuív asked a lot of questions. I totally reject that we have done nothing. It is quite the opposite. I have met all the banks in this country and I met a number of them on more than one occasion. Extra funding has been made available. Ulster Bank, for example, launched a specific food harvest fund. In the past fortnight Bank of Ireland launched with me a €250 million fund specifically targeting agriculture and farmers. That is on top of another €250 million fund that was launched a number of months ago. We have been active in pursuing and pushing banks to specifically tailor funding for the agrifood sector and for farmers, many of whom need to invest at the moment in anticipation of potential growth in the future. We have been very active on the banking front.

Having said that, I would like to see more from the banks, in particular for sectors that are currently in crisis. The pig sector, and to a certain extent the poultry sector, are under severe pressures because of the price of feed. In many cases they need bridging finance to get them through a difficult period. I hope and expect that banks would provide them with the necessary support. I have been speaking to farmers' organisations about that.

No, we are not making any changes to the stocking density requirements. We made changes last year on eligibility in an effort to try to avoid cutting the scheme for everybody. We wanted to try to differentiate between farmers who get the majority of their income from farming and those who are essentially farming for schemes, many of whom do not live in disadvantaged areas but are renting and taking out land in order to draw down schemes. That is not the kind of farmer we have the luxury of supporting at the moment-----

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