Marc MacSharry (Fianna Fail) | Oireachtas source

Will the Leader make contact with the Minister for Agriculture, Food and the Marine today in the interests of finally arriving at a solution regarding the delay in payments to the many farm families throughout Ireland? I am sure all Senators have received representations at their clinics and advice centres in respect of these delays. The delays in question have occurred at the same time in each of the past several years and are caused by the need to take satellite photographs, to digitise data, etc. I checked the position in Donegal, Sligo and Leitrim just before I came to the House and discovered that some 6,000 farm families are awaiting payments due to them under the areas of natural constraints scheme - previously known as the disadvantaged areas scheme - and also basic payments. This is completely unacceptable. Farm families, like many others in business, are trying to make ends meet. At this time of the year, many of them are obliged to make insurance payments and loan repayments and they need to buy feed and fodder in the normal way. We acknowledge the added financial pressure to which the Christmas season gives rise for all families. It is unacceptable that 6,000 families in Donegal, Sligo, Leitrim and north Roscommon have experienced delays in respect of their payments.

If people are late in making VAT returns, filing accounts with the Companies Office or submitting tax returns to Revenue, penalties and surcharges apply. What is going to be done for the farm families throughout the country to which I refer? Nobody cares about them; they are mere numbers on computer screens as far as Government Departments are concerned. However, these are the families which are funding local economies. The delays they are experiencing with regard to the payments due to them - which, in effect, represent a form of income - are unacceptable. They require the money involved in order to make vital payments or repayments of their own. I request that the Leader make personal contact with the Minister, Deputy Coveney, and ask him to accelerate these payments as a matter of the utmost urgency. I referred to 6,000 families in Donegal, Sligo and Leitrim but I am sure that there are similar numbers of people in the Leader's county of Waterford, in Cork and in other counties who, for no good reason, are also awaiting these vital payments. What will they be given by way compensation for the delays that have occurred? It must be remembered that if the shoe were on the other foot and if they made late returns to Revenue, the State would penalise them.

I request an urgent debate on the shambles relating to rent controls.I cannot identify anyone in the Department of the Environment, Community and Local Government with a shred of common sense. Yesterday, the Minister announced to landlords that they should put up the rent as quick as they can and that is what all of them will do. There is no emergency legislation, even though the Taoiseach said it was hoped to have it done by the end of the month. On "Six One", the Minister, Deputy Kelly, said he would have it done within the next week but I can assure Senators that most tenants in Ireland have been told this morning that their rent is going up. If these people could not afford the rent yesterday, they will not be able to afford it today.

There is nothing in this for accidental landlords, those people who bought houses which they were forced to rent out because they could not afford to stay in them and had to move into another rented property. We have not put our thinking cap on at all in respect of this issue. This is a supply issue but we have done nothing about it and have not been innovative enough. The compromise that has resulted from the internal parliamentary tiff between the Minister for Finance, Deputy Noonan, and the Minister for the Environment, Community and Local Government, Deputy Kelly, has produced nothing for the struggling renting population of this country.