Charlie McConalogue (Donegal, Fianna Fail) | Oireachtas source

Deputy Griffin is absolutely right. Farmers are normal citizens with the same normal everyday pressures on their families that every other family has outside of their daily working lives. Obviously, there are particular pressures in terms of their work life and cost pressures, on which the Government is supporting them with as best it can.

Likewise, there is a real pressure arising from the general increase in the cost of living and ordinary non-farming life. It is really important that we look at how we can reward and support farmers and families in general. We will certainly look at this in the round with regard to families as we prepare for this budget.

With regard to Deputy Browne's point, €50 million came from the crisis reserve at European level. We have spent that on the pig sector specifically. As I outlined to Deputy Griffin, I have delivered €91 million overall this year in direct funding to support farmers. I chose not to use that particular mechanism because it is laden down with unnecessary red tape. Instead of co-funding that €15 million and imposing lots of avoidable terms and conditions on that funding, which would have made it more difficult for farming, I stepped outside of that and provided national funding, which I delivered to farmers through a different mechanism. This was much more straightforward whereas what Deputy Browne proposed would actually bog down everything in red tape and would not be to the benefit of farm families.

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