Martin Ferris (Kerry, Sinn Fein) | Oireachtas source

I find it difficult to understand how this has arisen when there was a huge number of claims at the start which the computers and officials were able to process. There is now roughly 4,222 claims across the knowledge transfer, organic farmer, AEOS and GLAS schemes, which seems a very small number. If it is possible to process tens of thousands of claims in a period and only 4,000 or so are left, I cannot understand how things are now so slow and the Department is not able to deal with them. In my county alone, approximately 150 GLAS payments remain outstanding. It was 189 two weeks ago. As such, 39 payments have been made in two weeks.

A person I am currently dealing with regarding TAMS II was given the go-ahead in early August 2016 over the phone on the back of which he borrowed money from the bank to buy equipment. Now, he will not be paid because the Department says he made those payments prior to getting written approval. It is not acceptable that somebody who has borrowed a great deal of money finds himself in a situation where he will have to appeal to get this sorted out.

It may be stretching things a bit, but I want to raise the issue of grain farmers and the result of a Private Members' motion here. Their losses last year would have been sorted out with €4 million. I ask the Minister of State, Deputy English, to use his influence with the Minister, or to act if he is the new Minister, to ensure that the grain farmers who were decimated last year get some support. It is a very small amount of money. The Minister has made a commitment to increase the ANC payments by €25 million in the 2018 budget. I hope Deputy English will be the Minister. I see him nodding his head as if he is going to meet all those commitment. I hope he will live up to all that when he becomes the Minister, if he does.

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