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

It is true that farmers want to be paid as soon as possible from a cashflow point of view. On 16 October, a 75% advance payment on single farm payments will be made, which will amount to €750 million in payments to farmers, €250 million more than would normally be given out at that time of year. This is one of a number of measures to help farmers in terms of cashflow. There will be a lot of money coming farmers' way in the next few weeks.

In terms of this particular package, I do not want to give the Deputy an exact figure because no decision has been made yet on the likely top-up amount for young farmers. While I would like to give a top-up, it may not amount to a 20% or 25% top-up.

On pig farmers, I am not sure we will take the same approach to pig farmers as we do to dairy farmers. I need to speak to the industry to understand what they want. The only conversation we have had to date has been with the dairy sector in terms of how it would like money to be paid out. We want to get that done quickly. I agree that pig farmers are also under pressure, but they are under a different structure from dairy farmers in that many of them run large operations and as such are much bigger, and also, there are not as many of them as there are dairy farmers. We need to sit down and discuss with pig farmers how they would like us to spend the limited resources available for them.

The amount of money cannot be confirmed until a final decision on whether the Exchequer will provide matching funding has been made.

See this speech in context