Nicky McFadden (Fine Gael)

I wish to raise an issue that has disturbed me. On Monday, I visited a nursery garden centre in my constituency where I witnessed at first hand the utter devastation caused by the bad frost early this year. The cost to the nursery's owner in terms of plants is more than €600,000. All the garden centre's plants were dead. The gentleman employs 18 people, but he will not be considered for compensation because he did not attend the meeting the potato growers had the benefit of attending. For the life of me, I cannot understand why there is a difference between a nursery owner supplying hedges all over Ireland and potato growers. He is getting up to five calls per day from customers asking him to take back dying plants. It is demoralising.

It is an award-winning nursery and I fail to understand why the Minister for Agriculture, Fisheries and Food, Deputy Smith, will not consider the owner in the same light as the potato growers and allow him to be compensated. The scheme closed in February, but this devastation was not apparent until the end of March. Will the Leader use his good office to speak with the Minister about a compensation package for nursery owners, as I understand it to be a nationwide problem? The man in question was out on Christmas Eve wrapping his plants in fleece, which was blown off by the wind. I have never seen anything like it. I ask the Leader to intervene and to let me know how he gets on.