DESPITE AN assurance from Minister for Agriculture Brendan Smith that all farmers will be paid for Farm Waste Management works carried out, he has come under attack for underestimating the amount of money needed.
A report in the Sunday Tribune claimed that Mr Smith seriously undercalculated the amount of money needed to pay farmers this year by as much as €400 million.
Yesterday, Mr Smith denied this was the case but did confirm that he was in discussion about the issue with the Minister for Finance, Brian Lenihan.
He said as many as 10,000 claims arrived in the Dublin office from farmers late in December. All work had to be completed on the Government-financed scheme by December 31st last, he told RTÉ’s Morning Ireland.
Mr Smith said it was not possible to estimate what was owed to farmers because the department had said late last year that it would pay for portions of work done or parts of projects finished.
“This Government will honour its commitments to farmers unlike governments of other shades,” said the Minister who later today will take questions from farmers at the Irish Farmers Association’s annual general meeting.
But Pádraig Walshe, president of the IFA, said farmers must be paid what they are owed and Mr Smith knew how many of them were owed money as far back as mid 2007.
Mr Walshe said: “42,000 farmers applied and around 34,000 have indicated to the Department of Agriculture that they have completed work under the scheme. Already, half of these farmers have been paid during 2007 and 2008.
“The end of year deadline created enormous pressures on farmers to complete their investment. 17,000 farmers finished their work and are now waiting for grant aid,” he said.
Catherine Buckley, president of Macra na Feirme, said many young farmers had secured bridging loans and other credit arrangements to cover the timeframe of payments of the grant aid from the department.
It had set out under the Charter of Rights for Farmers and applicants were to be approved for payment within nine weeks and issue of payment within five weeks of receipt of their claim – a total of 14 weeks of completing works.
The Fine Gael agriculture spokesman Michael Creed, called on the Minister to ensure that farmers were protected from the consequences of his €400 million underestimation of the farm improvement scheme, which he described as “an unbelievable accounting blunder”.
Ireland East MEP Maireád McGuinness attacked the Minister’s credibility and said he had attempted to deflect from the fact that he failed to accurately estimate the costs of the scheme and failed to plan and budget accurately for those costs.