Eamon Scanlon (Fianna Fail)

I thank the Minister of State for coming into the House this evening to listen to our concerns. There is no doubt that this has been a tough year for agriculture. In my own county in the north-west, farmers received €32 million in direct payments this year alone but that is not to say that farmers are millionaires. They are not, but farmers have to be treated differently from PAYE workers or others on salaries because to remain in farming farmers must reinvest the money they earned. That reinvestment process goes on all the time.