Michael Creed (Cork North West, Fine Gael) | Oireachtas source

For the record of the House, the number of applicants awaiting AEOS payments is not 4,000; it is 2,600.

I fully accept the concern of anybody awaiting payment. In many respects, when one is explaining one is losing. I must be fair to the staff in the Department. We must be fair to everybody, including staff and farmers. Farmers are owed their money. We are contractually bound to pay them and will do so. We are working through a difficult set of circumstances, however, and it is not a resource issue. It is neither an administrative resource issue nor an IT resource issue. We simply have to eyeball each of the individual applications that are presented as a challenge to get them through our system. We are doing that. Staff are working flat out on it. It is a logistical issue, not a resource issue. I appreciate that the Deputy wants to spin a narrative of under-expenditure and deliberate under-expenditure. With regard to the difficulty that farmers are in at present, I acknowledge that if one is waiting for several thousand euro it presents a difficulty. I assure the Deputy that we are doing everything we can to resolve this matter.

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