Michael Creed (Cork North West, Fine Gael) | Oireachtas source

I thank the Senator for raising the matter. I am acutely conscious of the hardship it is causing in terms of cashflow management for individual farmers. According to the charter, agreed between farmers and my Department, we are behind the curve in getting the payments out and they are overdue. I assure all Senators and the farming community that every effort is being made in the Department to make the payments as quickly as possible. Every single application from the cohort that remain to be paid has to be eyeballed to identify and resolve the issues in respect of the individual application. I am not pointing a finger outside the Department as it has to be resolved within the Department so that, when we press the pay button next year for all 38,000 applicants, it will all issue smoothly. We are in a similar situation to the one we were in at this time last year but every effort is being made in terms of IT resources, personnel and overtime availability. It is a logistical issue that needs time to resolve but, extrapolating from what we have paid in recent weeks, I would be very disappointed if it took the length of the time the Senator has suggested.