Bernard Durkan (Kildare North, Fine Gael)
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8. To ask the Minister for Agriculture, Food and the Marine the degree to which animal welfare requirements continue to be met with particular reference to the extent to which his Department and the relevant local authorities have joined in their efforts to ensure that farmers who are required to undertake expensive development costs in the course of meeting the animal welfare criteria laid down in the pig and poultry sectors, are treated in a reasonable manner in respect of compliance with approval in respect of buildings that are in accord with plans to the nearest square metre and that local authorities are not expected to issue confirmation to this effect other than in the normal way; and if he will make a statement on the matter. [21513/13]

Simon Coveney (Cork South Central, Fine Gael)
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With regard to planning matters, the Deputy will be aware that these are the responsibility of my colleague, the Minister for Environment, Community and Local Government. However, I am aware of the challenges faced by farmers in respect of new developments to meet animal welfare directives and my Department has been working with all stakeholders to ensure that this transition goes as smoothly as possible.

New EU animal welfare rules setting down new standards on the housing of sows came into force on 1 January 2013. My Department introduced a targeted agricultural modernisation scheme, better known to farmers as TAMS, for sow welfare in June 2010 in order to assist pig farmers in converting existing pig units or constructing new units to comply with the requirements of this directive. I introduced a revised TAMS sow welfare scheme in July 2012. The revised scheme increased the previous investment ceiling of €300,000 per holding to €500,000 per applicant for the first sow house; a further amount of €300,000 for each of the next three houses was also introduced. A total of €13 million has been allocated to this scheme under the rural development programme. It follows two earlier schemes in 2005 and 2007 and payments of €6.2 million have already been made to pig producers.

A significant number of pig producers have undertaken the necessary work required to upgrade their facilities in order to comply with the new rules. The deadline for receipt of valid applications was 3 May 2013 and all work under the scheme must be completed by the end of September 2013.

With regard to the poultry sector, the enriched cage production system, which prohibited the sale of eggs produced in older un-enriched cages, was introduced in January 2012. Some €16 million was allocated through the TAMS, under the aegis of Ireland’s rural development programme, to assist existing producers to convert their production systems. The deadline for completion of work was the end of September 2012 and, to date, more than €11 million has been paid out to farmers under the scheme.

In conclusion, I am satisfied that my Department has made substantial resources available to the pig and poultry sectors to enable producers in these sectors to comply with EU legislation in the animal welfare area. In addition, both I and the Department are in regular contact with farm bodies and various banks concerning the availability of credit to pig and poultry farmers. Farmers who are not satisfied with the service provided by their banks can ask for an internal review by the bank but I would also encourage them to talk to my Department because I would like to hear if they are not getting the kind of treatment they need to get from their banks at the moment.

Bernard Durkan (Kildare North, Fine Gael)
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I thank the Minister for his comprehensive reply, for the work he has done under the animal welfare headings and the support he has given to farmers in the pig and poultry sectors. Farmers who are actively trying to comply with the September deadline and are well on course to do so find themselves at slight odds with the local authorities in terms of planning permission and often the devil can be in the detail. The old standard that is applicable is that if a development is largely compliant with the design submitted to the planning authority, that is acceptable and can be signed off by a competent architect or engineer. This apparently is not acceptable to the Department of Agriculture, Food and the Marine, which has required a certificate from the local authority, but the local authorities do not provide that in respect of any development. The Minister might engage with the relevant sectors to find out what exactly is happening because an administrative blockage is resulting unfortunately in a more serious one to the effect that some sow owners have been threatened with the possibility of not being compliant with regulations and may have to forego their farm support grants even though the September deadline has not yet been achieved.

Michael Kitt (Galway East, Fianna Fail)
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I call the Minister for a final reply.

Simon Coveney (Cork South Central, Fine Gael)
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We are trying to be as helpful as we can to the pig sector in particular. What is being asked of farmers here is to move from an intensive, essentially, tethered system for sows to loose housing for breeding sows, which is a welfare issue. This is not before time, it should have happened years ago. In some countries in the European Union it did happen years ago but the capital investment required to do that is significant for many farmers at a time when those in the pig industry has had a pretty tough few years in terms of the price of feed in particular and some margins have been very tight. We are trying to be as helpful as we can by maximising the grant aid and we have increased it as I outlined. If there are other issues around planning or approvals in terms of engineering certificates or whatever that are a blockage in the system, perhaps the Deputy could give me the details of those and we can talk about the matter afterwards, but I would be anxious to try to facilitate this because we are trying to keep as many pig farmers in business as we can. We will lose some because of these changes but I hope it will be a very small number because this is an industry we want to grow and expand. Perhaps the Deputy could give me some details on this and I assure him we will follow up on it.