Éamon Ó Cuív (Galway West, Fianna Fail) | Oireachtas source

We are going around in circles. Unfortunately, most of the Minister of State's response could have been left out. In my question, I discounted those who illegally burnt land. They are ineligible; there is no question. The Minister of State read from a script, the first page and a half of which was irrelevant. The issue is where a farmer did not burn his land and had no hand, act or part in it, but where he is in a commonage, part of which was burnt. Let us throw away the script for a while and make decisions here. The Minister of State, as a hill farmer, knows that he has to make day-to-day practical decisions, and the kind of vague language here is not helping us.

The first question is if I take land out of the application now, do I take it that a case cannot be made to put it back in again because I have taken it out? From the Minister of State's knowledge of how the Department operates, am I correct in thinking that if a farmer takes the land out, the Department is not going to put it back in again? By going down that route, the farmer definitely loses. Route two is that the farmer leaves it in. If a farmer proves in the way I outlined earlier, through An Garda Síochána, the only people who can confirm his innocence, that the farmer is not in any way being investigated for any illegality and that he or she had no hand, act or part in the burning, will the Minister of State confirm if that is adequate proof, or will he suggest alternative adequate proof?

The second question is, if a farmer makes that case under force majeure,will he be paid? The third question is as follows. The Minister of State knows that when hill land burns, it becomes green very fast. If we give it a month or two in the summer, it could be green for a sufficient period to put stock on it.

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