Liz McManus (Wicklow, Labour)
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Question 70: To ask the Minister for Agriculture, Fisheries and Food if he will allow an extension of the period by which farmers can complete work under the farm waste management scheme as is the case in Northern Ireland where farmers have obtained additional time to complete building works under its on-farm grant scheme; and if he will make a statement on the matter. [43979/08]

Brendan Smith (Cavan-Monaghan, Fianna Fail)
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The deadline of 31 December 2008 for completion of work by farmers under the revised farm waste management scheme introduced by my Department in March 2006 is a condition of the EU state aid approval for the scheme. The European Commission has since reaffirmed that it expects Ireland to respect this deadline strictly. This has been made known to all farmers who have been approved to commence work under the scheme and I have urged farmers to ensure that such work is completed and a payment claim submitted to my Department before the end of the year.

Where the farmer is unable to complete all the approved works before the deadline, grant-aid will be paid by my Department on separate and discrete units of work which are completed to the Department's technical specifications subject again to fulfilment of the conditions regarding the deadline set out above. Full details regarding this matter were sent by the Department to all approved farmers under the scheme some time ago.

I have confirmed previously on a number of occasions that there will be no extension to the deadline concerned. The measures adopted in Northern Ireland in regard to its own scheme, which is substantially different to ours, are a matter for the authorities there.

Michael Creed (Cork North West, Fine Gael)
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Is the Minister aware that in Northern Ireland this scheme has been extended by a number of months?

In October last, 30,000 of the 42,000 applicants had proceeded and notified the Department that they were commencing work. Obviously, there will be a number — let us not argue about its size — who will not proceed in any event. However, there is a sizeable number of farmers who will not be compliant with the Nitrates Directive by virtue of the scheme deadline. The future for them is either that they reduce their farming activities or they finance it out of their own resources, neither of which is viable in my opinion.

The Minister must also take into account the significant employment that will be generated, in rural communities, in particular, in the construction sector. According to the live register today, 17,000 additional persons went on the register in November.

Would the Minister please consider at this late stage extending the deadline by six months to enable the maximum number of applicants to complete those works and be compliant with the Nitrates Directive?

Seán Sherlock (Cork East, Labour)
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If I had two seconds extra, I would have come in on cue but I was being given a briefing by the Deputy from south-west Cork.

Charlie O'Connor (Dublin South West, Fianna Fail)
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Now that Deputy Sherlock is briefed, he can ask his question.

Seán Sherlock (Cork East, Labour)
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I note Deputy Creed was quick off the mark. Anyway, as somebody who posed the question, even though it is in the name of Deputy Liz McManus, I wish to put on record that I do not see why this is so, there is not any legal impediment and there is no European Union directive that states that the Minister cannot extend the deadline to allow for this scheme to be implemented. The scheme is revenue neutral.

I do not see why, if it can be done on one part of this island, it cannot be done on another part of this island. It defies logic. Farmers in the North are farming the same types of land as farmers in the South. I cannot see the logic of the Government's position on this matter. I do not see why the Minister cannot change his mind on it. I ask the Minister to consider changing his mind on it.

P J Sheehan (Cork South West, Fine Gael)
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Acting Chairman, it was nominated by me.

Michael Creed (Cork North West, Fine Gael)
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No, it was not.

P J Sheehan (Cork South West, Fine Gael)
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I asked the Minister for Agriculture, Fisheries and Food if he will extend the deadline of 31 December 2008 for persons who have been approved for a farm waste management grant; if he has made approaches to the European Commission seeking an extension of time for those who have been approved for a farm waste management grant; and if he will make a statement on the matter. I want one minute to speak.

Charlie O'Connor (Dublin South West, Fianna Fail)
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The question is in the name of Deputy Liz McManus, nominated by Deputy Seán Sherlock.

P J Sheehan (Cork South West, Fine Gael)
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Did the Acting Chairman get the one nominated by Deputy P. J. Sheehan?

Charlie O'Connor (Dublin South West, Fianna Fail)
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I did not.

P J Sheehan (Cork South West, Fine Gael)
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It is further down the list.

Charlie O'Connor (Dublin South West, Fianna Fail)
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It has not been advised to me.

P J Sheehan (Cork South West, Fine Gael)
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It is there and it was submitted.

Charlie O'Connor (Dublin South West, Fianna Fail)
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Unfortunately, the questions must be dealt with by the Chair.

P J Sheehan (Cork South West, Fine Gael)
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Give me one minute only.

Charlie O'Connor (Dublin South West, Fianna Fail)
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I will. Go ahead.

P J Sheehan (Cork South West, Fine Gael)
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I can see no reason why the Minister cannot extend that scheme, for three months, if possible, to allow for the people who have encountered such savage weather conditions in the past 12 months. They were hardly able to dig out the foundation for these improvements.

I would not mind but I believe that the Minister has not made an application to Brussels for an extension of the deadline of 31 December next. If he has not, would he please do so immediately?

There are agricultural contractors in my constituency in west Cork laying off hundreds of people next week on account of that deadline. I believe they got an extension in Northern Ireland. Why can we not get it if we make an application?

I want to know for future reference whether the Minister made an application to the European Commission for an extension of the deadline and if so, what was the result. That is all I want.

Martin Ferris (Kerry North, Sinn Fein)
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I reiterate the need for an extension of the deadline similar to that afforded to the Six Counties, for three months. I emphasise that there are many who will not get their buildings completed by that date. Others cannot even get started because there is nobody available with the necessary qualifications to do that. It is mind boggling to say that slurry spreading could be extended to 31 December by the Minister in the North, and again by the same Minister for another three months. Maybe we need a Sinn Féin Minister on that side of the House.

Brendan Smith (Cavan-Monaghan, Fianna Fail)
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There is no merit in comparing the scheme in the three Ulster counties in this jurisdiction with the remaining 23 counties. The scheme rolled out by the Minister for Agriculture and Rural Development in the North for its farming community is a scheme where grant aid is only applicable in respect of slurry storage capacity. There was no element to include grant aid for housing, so it is not accurate to compare the schemes because they are not similar. The level of grant aid is not as good in the North either.

My understanding is that the Department of Agriculture and Rural Development in Northern Ireland has not received express European Commission clearance for this procedure. I also understand that the Department in the North will consider applications in exceptional circumstances, but it does not have a general extension to the scheme until 2 March. When the Tánaiste, as Minister for Agriculture and Food, obtained State aid approval from the European Commission, the very arguments she made were about adverse weather conditions in early 2006. Unfortunately for all of us, those adverse weather conditions have not improved. In seeking a time derogation, our other argument was that there was not sufficient construction capacity in our economy and that there would be a huge scale of work to be undertaken when we launched a particular scheme. These arguments got us the extension from March 2006 to the end of December 2008. It has been an extremely successful scheme and the most generous granted-aided on-farm investment scheme. The European Commission consistently repeated to us this year that it gave us an exceptional extension to the end of December 2008 and that we were obliged to adhere strictly to that particular condition.

Some months ago, following conversations with individual farmers and representations from colleagues in the Oireachtas, I found out that some farmers, for whatever reason, might not have completed the entire project for which they applied in 2006. I introduced a specific measure to allow an individual applicant carry out part of the work, known as a discrete unit, within the overall plan and finish it according to the Department's specification. The person who would work on an individual project within the overall scheme could draw down grant aid on that particular unit of the project. Many individual farmers applied for substantial projects back in 2006. Subsequently, they might not want to go ahead with the housing element of the scheme. We issued approval to those people to finish specific units within the overall scheme, and that has facilitated many farmers throughout the country in doing the necessary work as they saw fit.

P J Sheehan (Cork South West, Fine Gael)
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Did the Minister take the adverse weather conditions into account?

Brendan Smith (Cavan-Monaghan, Fianna Fail)
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One of the reasons for getting the extension to the end of December 2008 was the existence of adverse weather conditions. Unfortunately, those conditions have not improved in the meantime.