Seán Kyne (Fine Gael) | Oireachtas source

I appreciate that the Minister of State is not a line Minister in the Department. The correspondence from the Department states that the inspection found that the whole of the 90% of the area was eligible under the revised basic payment scheme rules and the results were applied to all shareholder applications from 2015 onwards.

Unfortunately, this only came about because of the judicial review taken by two of the shareholders. As I said, as a precedent was set it was expected that all other shareholders of Keelderry commonage would receive their outstanding money. However, the cycle started all over again. Money was withheld and there were no responses to queries. The other shareholders are owed a significant amount of money. I absolutely refute the claim that the Department is satisfied that no moneys are owed to applicants.

There is considerable money owed to applicants and shareholders of the Keelderry commonage. This was brought to the attention of the Minister, Deputy McConalogue, who gave an initial response to one of the shareholders and did not subsequently respond to a comprehensive report on the moneys that were being withheld. I ask the Minister to go back to the Department and Minister and inform them that the shareholders of Keelderry are deserving of their payments. They are lawfully due these payments and it is not good enough that just because two shareholders had the means to take a judicial review and were successful that the other shareholders are being denied their due entitlements. This goes back to 2010. It is a long-running saga. It had to be settled in the courts and the Department now needs to pay all of the remaining shareholders.