Martin Kenny (Sligo-Leitrim, Sinn Fein) | Oireachtas source

Or the advisers. There will always be somebody who is a little late. Everybody does not get every wisp of hay home; that is life but farmers have been waiting for their money for a very lengthy period as the Minister of State will acknowledge. What needs to be acknowledged is that there is a problem in the Department in regard to the IT systems it uses. I am not blaming the Minister of State, the Minister or anyone else at present but the problem needs to be acknowledged and a solution needs to be found to deal with it. Every year, some issue or clash arises, or the independent advisers have a row with Teagasc because they do not have access to this or that. It is the same with the commonage framework plans that are due shortly. Could the Minister of State acknowledge the problem and assure the House, farmers and advisers that an effort will be made to deal with the matter.

There is a bit of a hotchpotch within the Department. Many different people are coming in as consultants working on the computer system and there is no overall system working effectively and efficiently and able to deal with what we all acknowledge is a massive volume of payments. Farmers are very grateful for the payments. The system would work very well if we could get it to work better, but there is currently a hold-up. Blaming the advisers or farmers is not really the way forward. The Government needs to acknowledge that there is a problem and that it needs to be fixed.

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