Eamon Scanlon (Sligo-Leitrim, Fianna Fail) | Oireachtas source

This is an issue I have raised a number of times. Yesterday morning, between 9 a.m and 10.30 a.m., I received calls from four farmers who are desperately waiting for payments. It is six months since farmers applied for payments, which are being held up by satellite inspections. In 99% of cases, these inspections do not make any difference and there is no change. I ask that advance payments in these schemes of 85% and 70%, respectively, be made to farmers. If a deduction has to be made afterwards, there are sufficient funds available for those deductions. These people are desperate. They have bills to pay and we are approaching the Christmas period. When I rang the Department of Agriculture, Food and the Marine yesterday, I was told no further payments would be made until 2 December. If these people do not get their payments on that date, the payments will not be made until next year and they will pay double tax next year because they did not get their money this year.

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