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

I appreciate that but at the same time, restoring their confidence is going to take an awful lot of work. We all know that because confidence in this scheme has been dented significantly. We are now in 2025 and this scheme started in 2023. I know there can be teething problems but they should not go on for this long. Many is the animal out there that has a full set of teeth grown and has gone to slaughter since this started. The Minister cannot just put it down to teething problems. There are serious and recurring difficulties in the Department of agriculture when new schemes are rolled out. Every time, there are issues. Farmers get delays, penalties and all kinds of issue like that, but we should not have those.

The Minister cannot control the prices - we talked about this earlier - that farmers get for their produce. We understand that. He can help make the markets better and so on but he cannot control the prices. He cannot control the weather, which is a big issue for farmers. However, the one thing the Department of agriculture can control is the schemes it designs, and those schemes should be efficient and effective. They should pay farmers when farmers are owed money, and if everyone does what he or she is supposed to do, it should work smoothly and effectively, but it does not. It never has. I am not blaming the Minister. It has been the same under every other Minister for agriculture that I have seen. These schemes have never worked properly, and it would be a major job of work to change that and get them to work right.

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