Joan Burton (Dublin West, Labour) | Oireachtas source

More importantly, when I met the farming organisations and their representatives, I learned, understandably, that what they were concerned about in the run-up to last year's budget was that farmers who were experiencing difficulties because of fodder shortages were likely to have much worse outcomes in terms of their income than might have been anticipated the previous year. What I did, and have done for self-employed people also, which was not the case when the Deputy's party was in government, was to provide that any self-employed person, farmer or fisherman can go into the Department of Social Protection and bring with them details of their current accounts, especially if they have lost their business or have had a sudden catastrophic fall in income, which might happen from time to time for people engaged in farming. This is in contrast to the period when Fianna Fáil was in government when those people would have been turned away. The Deputy will remember at the time of the previous general election that there were widespread complaints from self-employed people that they could not access social welfare payments, but now they can. A total of €91 million is being spent on this scheme and I gave the Deputy the number of farm families who benefit from it.

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