Martin Heydon (Kildare South, Fine Gael) | Oireachtas source

The officials are making good progress through them. We hope to have them all cleared in early April. Good progress is being made in this regard.

I acknowledge the work of the Women in Agriculture Stakeholders Group, which has led the way on this. We were very happy to work on its early proposals. As things evolve and change, we keep an eye on its requests.

To go back to the point, we have to protect the public good and ensure any scheme we have is not open to being used for purposes other than what it is designed for. I know that issues regarding herd numbers have been raised. We have to safeguard the integrity of the overall system so that we do not undermine it for those 700 who qualify. We will keep it under review, as we do with all elements of TAMS. Right now, our priority is to process the 700 women in agriculture capital investment applications as quickly as possible.

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