Sinn Féin Seanad spokesperson on Agriculture, Senator Pádraig Mac Lochlainn has stated that a commitment by the Minister for Agriculture that vital TAMS payments would be made to farmers in July this year has not been followed through with and has left farmers in deep financial trouble.
Over 3,000 Donegal farmers applied for the scheme, however over 89 have been approved.
Senator Mac Lochlainn is now calling on the Minister for Agriculture, Michael Creed, to resolve this issue.
Senator Pádraig MacLochlainn
Speaking after being made aware of this delayed payments issue, Senator Mac Lochlainn said:
“On the back of already expressed worries about delays in payment of BPS and ANC schemes, the Minister must intervene immediately to ensure whatever problems are obviously arising within the processing of all these payments schemes are teased out and resolved once and for all.
“I have contacted the Ministers office to highlight the pressing need for these payments to be made to farmers immediately in line with the commitment he made.
Minister Michael Creed
“It is not good enough that farmers who have had an extremely hard year income wise, and are under severe cashflow pressure, now face these preventable and avoidable delays.
“The ICMSA have called on the Minister to bypass the computer system and make manual payments as has happened with other schemes if it is this system causing the delays and I fully endorse this call.
“This is the time of year that farmers make necessary upgrades to their farms to ensure they meet compliance standards and avoid penalties once inspections commence in the Autumn. I further call on the Minister to deploy extra resources to sort out this chaos once and for all. Farmers have lost confidence in the systems that make these payments and it will now require the Minister to personally intervene, honour his previous commitment and restore this confidence.”