Pat Moylan (Fianna Fail)

I welcome the Minister of State, Deputy Tim O'Malley, to the House. I am calling on the Minister for Finance to take urgent action to alleviate the serious financial losses incurred by farmers in the Shannon callows area of County Offaly following the flooding of their farmland. In the past, when problems arose in other parts of the country, aid schemes were administered by the OPW.

Some of the television coverage of the flooding was not appropriate. Cattle were depicted as standing in water but farmers in my area would turn their livestock to the roads in preference to leaving them in water. I do not doubt that farmers would refute allegations that they left cattle to stand in water. The only option open to many of them when their lands flooded was to put their stock on uplands intended for hay or silage. These farmers will face real hardships later this year because of the loss of these crops. The Department of Finance should instruct Teagasc to determine who exactly has been affected because farmers who cut hay and silage later in the year will not suffer as much as farmers whose grazing lands were completely flooded and who had no option but to move sheep and cattle elsewhere.

I am aware that the Shannon will never be drained because, if a Minister made any suggestion to that effect, environmentalists would dig in along the side of the river to stop the project. Substantial amounts of money have been spent in the callows to preserve corncrakes but these birds were also affected by the flooding. Farmers and their livelihoods must come first.

While I refer this evening to County Offaly, counties Roscommon, Galway, Westmeath and other low-lying areas of the Shannon basin have also been affected. Nonetheless, the farmers I represent in west County Offaly face particular difficulties.