Michael McNamara (Clare, Independent) | Oireachtas source

There are no additional moneys now. I have raised this issue repeatedly in the Dáil. I raised it with Deputy Micheál Martin when he was Taoiseach, and as Tánaiste, and I have raised it with the Minister, Deputy McConalogue. I have been told that senior officials are looking at the matter. Senior officials are still looking at the matter. We are in May, the scheme ran out last November and there are no concrete proposals to compensate farmers.

Farmers wait to be compensated for the designation. They received payments under the BurrenLIFE scheme and they receive lesser payments now under ACRES. They received payments under the hen harrier project, but receive lesser payments now. In fact, they are still waiting for their payments under the hen harrier scheme. I asked the Minister's Department and was told it was nothing to do with the Department and the scheme was being implemented by somebody else, but the farmers are waiting. They have not even received the money they were promised and now they are promised nothing. Unless and until the farmers receive their moneys, they will not accept or believe this scheme will be anything other than punitive to farmers and that they will bear the brunt of it, instead of society as a whole paying for it. That is what they are promised, but farmers know otherwise, because they have experienced it. They have been sold down the Swanee by the Government. I ask the Minister to address the issue. If the Minister wants farmers to go along with him and have any shred of confidence in what he and what the European Commission says to them, the Government must adhere to what he said he would do, compensate farmers for being designated and stop the double talk.

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