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

I am being told they are not on fodder. It might not be the same in the case of other loan facilities for, say, machinery or land. I am told access to credit for fodder is being made available. If it is not, I need to hear about it to follow it up and I will then give the Deputy the answer to that.

The co-ops are making significant credit available. Glanbia, for example, has made an extra €15 million available to their farmers while Dairygold, Connacht Gold, Lakeland, Kerry and others have similar arrangements in place. It is in their interest that farmers feed their animals and spend money on getting fertiliser out to be used this month.

Farm inspections are a sensitive issue for farmers and farming organisations. We have spoken to our inspectors and they are being much more cautious and sensitive in how they treat farmers at the moment. It is recognised people are under stress but we cannot simply stop inspections. That is not a practical or sensible suggestion because it will have knock-on consequences for disallowances and European auditing.

In the past two weeks, we have made payments to over 1,500 farmers in the agri-environment options scheme, AEOS. Many of them have been difficult cases that have been delayed for reasons that needed time to sort out. We will be making another 600 payments in the next week. This all amounts to €3 million in AEOS payments in less than three weeks. Payments have been fast-tracked.

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