asked the Minister for Agriculture and Fisheries if all outstanding headage grant payments have now been made for County Galway.
Ceisteanna—Questions. Oral Answers. - Headage Grant Payments.
22.
A small number of grants remain to be paid in all counties. These are mainly cases requiring special examination which will be cleared as quickly as possible. The number outstanding in County Galway is less than 200.
Is the Parliamentary Secretary aware that the Minister informed the House some months ago that all these grants would be paid by the end of March and is the Parliamentary Secretary now saying 200 have not been paid?
All the grants were paid by the end of March save those where some difficulties arose, such as the wrong herd number being submitted by the applicant or the Department found the name of the applicant on the official herd list did not coincide. That happened in a number of cases where changes in holdings had taken place, where the land changed, for instance, from father to son and the relevant changes were not made so far as herd numbers were concerned. It is only in such cases payment has not yet been made. There are also cases where payment has not been made because people submitted the wrong electoral division and consequently the claims had to be deferred.
Is it not a fact that these people applied for this grant in August, 1975, and why should these difficulties still lie eight months later in the Department? Surely there was plenty of time to clear up small matters like herd numbers.
There were 5,200 applicants from Galway and my information is that almost 5,000 have been paid. The remaining 200 or so have to be investigated because of difficulties that have arisen.
Why has it taken so long, eight months?
It has not taken eight months. We dealt with all the straightforward applications and those outstanding are applications subject to investigation. Some of them may not be in order at all. In the case of milk, it is a matter for the creamery.
Might I ask the Parliamentary Secretary to request his Minister, in case he might forget, to ensure that these grants are paid in north-east Donegal.
I am sure they have been paid.