The Minister for Agriculture has failed completely in his duty to provide a proper level of service for farmers in the West.
The offices of the Department of Agriculture in Davitt House, Castlebar are open Monday to Friday from 9.30 a.m. to 12.30 p.m. It is impossible for the Department to provide a proper level of service to the farming community in County Mayo and other counties within those hours. Equally, it is impossible for individual farmers to make contact with the Department by telephone between those hours as the lines are constantly jammed.
The staff in the Department of Agriculture in Castlebar do a first class job under very trying circumstances. A full time staff of 12 deal with 11,000 headage claims and 10,000 sukler cow grants from County Mayo alone. In addition, this staff have to deal with 4,000 sheep headage claims and 5,000 ewe premium claims together with related problems associated with areaaid application forms and extensification grants.
What can farmers do? Farmers from areas like Louisburgh, Achill, Ballycroy, Belmullet, Kilmaine, Shrule or surrounding areas, who attempt to contact the Department by telephone often fail to do so and they then have to drive a round trip of up to 100 miles only to find that they cannot gain access to the offices and, if they do that there are no facilities therein to discuss their application problems in any degree of privacy.
Many farmers like to call to the Department to have problems arising from their claims dealt with on an individual basis. There is no space in the Department of Agriculture section of Davitt House for private conversations to sort out those problems. It means, therefore, that staff have to be accosted by individual farmers in the corridors or on their way in or out of the building in an attempt to validate their claims. The space on either side of the foyer of Davitt House is now being used as a store room and the building generally has taken on a tatty look indeed. There is a clear need for an upgrading of facility and a brightening up of the building in general.
I call on the Minister for Agriculture, Food and Forestry and the Minister for Finance to immediately allow for the recruitment of further temporary staff in addition to those presently employed, to allow for greater opening hours of this section of the Department to enable the public to call and deal with their problems, to allow for greater telephone access by the public to this section and to make arrangements for interview rooms to be provided whereby individuals calling to sort out their claims forms and problems arising therefrom can discuss those problems with officials of the Department in some degree of privacy.
It should be standard practice that as the Department of Agriculture requires all farmers to apply for EU agricultural assistance by a particular date so also should the farmer be entitled to receive his grants by a specific date. There are literally thousands of man hours wasted every year in dealing with queries arising from delays in agricultural payments. If the Minister regards farming as a business then prompt payment of grants and subsidies should be standard practice. This would alleviate the necessity for farmers to seek long term credit from co-ops and farming supply services.
In addition I call upon the Minister for Agriculture, Food and Forestry to make arrangements with the Minister for Finance for an upgrading of the general facilities at Davitt House, for the arrangement of proper space at the entrance to the building and for a brightening up of the facilities and conditions under which staff have to work.
In view of the huge output to be dealt with by staff at the Department of Agriculture section, Davitt House, they should be allowed work in the optimum conditions. The public have a right to expect that they should have greater access by longer opening hours and better facilities in which to have their claims dealt with.
My call, therefore, is for the Minister to respond as a matter of urgency to these claims in view of the very busy period ahead in the agriculture sector. I extend an invitation to the Minister to visit Davitt House, Castlebar, to see for himself the problems at first hand and to understand the necessity of upgrading facilities there immediately. This is a source of personal concern to thousands of farmers and I hope the Minister responds adequately.
