asked the Minister for Agriculture the steps he intends to take regarding the collapse of a firm (details supplied) in County Roscommon and the massive financial loss inflicted on many farmers thereby.
Ceisteanna—Questions. Oral Answers. - County Roscommon Firm.
13.
While I regret that farmers may have suffered financial loss, I have no responsibility or functions in regard to the financial affairs of the firm in question.
I asked this question in the hope that the Minister would give some assurance that the Government would take some steps towards helping the farming community in the west who face losses of up to £4.7 million as a result of the collapse of the firm. I ask the Minister to examine the possibility of making interest-free loans available to those farmers. Their herds were lost as a result of the collapse of the firm and their incomes for that year were wiped out. The Government should arrange interest-free loans to them to allow them to restock their lands and to prevent them from having to sell their homes and farms, leaving many of them with no future but the dole queue. Will the Minister make a submission to the Government to provide interest-free loans for those families?
We can look at the merits of individual situations and see how they might be incorporated in existing grant and loan schemes but to suggest that the State should step in and literally discharge debts owed by a firm that is gone into liquidation to farmers or to anybody else is outrageous. I am sure the Deputy appreciates that.
It is a unique situation.
The Deputy may not make speeches at Question Time. He should only ask short supplementary questions.
I asked the Minister to examine the possibility of interest-free loans. He has spoken about working within the present loan scheme but many of the farmers cannot pay the amount of interest being charged on borrowed money. I asked the Minister to examine this matter as a special case to see what could be done to alleviate the severe hardship caused. Have the Government taken any steps to prevent another similar disaster occurring at a future date?
I can only repeat what I have said already, that we will do what we can to facilitate farmers within the existing framework of schemes. I know the farmers in this instance because I represented the constituency which the Deputy represents now. However, I want to emphasise that there is no way any responsible Minister could bring in a scheme that would automatically discharge debts incurred by people in commerical arrangements. Because a firm has gone into liquidation, it does not give rise to the situation where the State just steps in and pays the debts of that firm. Once started on that slippery slope, where would financial purity and integrity be? We should have some sense of responsibility in the matter.
That was not what I asked. I asked that interest-free loans be made available to those farmers. I was not asking that the State discharge the debts of the firm concerned.
Before the Minister adopted the phrase "financial purity"——
And integrity.
I ask the Minister is it not the case that his Government set a precedent on a previous occasion where they met debts incurred by a bank that was in difficulties? Should the same principle not apply here?
As of now I do not believe in that.
Do I take it that the Minister once believed that but no longer does so?
I asked the Minister a second question. I wanted to know if the Government were prepared to amend legislation to ensure that a situation like this will never occur again.
In an enterprise society one cannot stop liquidations occurring and one cannot stop people embarking on commercial transactions where things go wrong. If the State was to act as a bailer-out in all those situations it would be a totally intolerable situation and the Deputy is well aware of that.
As a result of the collapse of Bray Travel amending legislation was introduced.
I am calling Question No. 14.