Malcolm Noonan (Carlow-Kilkenny, Green Party) | Oireachtas source

Absolutely Senator, I can bring that back to the Minister, Deputy McConalogue. As the Senator can appreciate, the Department took in all applicants, given that there was such an uptake and such demand for the scheme, which is fantastic. It is brilliant that it has happened but it has created significant additional pressure, not to mention in particular on the co-operation project side of it. Every effort is being made to try to address it. Again I will flag that our new breeding waders EIP scheme opened today people. People can go to the Department of agriculture website. It is a €25 million scheme. The open calls begin from today until 22 January 2024. Again, we would love farmers to be involved in a very positive scheme. These are brilliant schemes and farmers want to be involved in them. The last thing we want is for them to be deterred from doing that. We want to resolve this as soon as we can.