Vol. 485 No. 4
24 Mr. Hogan asked the Minister for Agriculture and Food the reason he failed to get the necessary approval for the reintroduction of the control of farmyard pollution scheme as promised in An Action Programme for the Millennium. [23179/97]
56 Mr. Howlin asked the Minister for Agriculture and Food when the control of farmyard pollution scheme will be restored as promised in An Action Programme for the Millennium; and if he will make a statement on the matter. [23330/97]
I propose to take Questions Nos. 24 and 56 together.
The position following the mid-term review of the Structural Funds is that an extra £20 million in public funds has been allocated to the scheme for the control of farm pollution. In addition a sum of £10 million was made available from national Exchequer funds in the recent Supplementary Estimate, to enable all grants maturing this year to be paid by the year end.
As regards reopening the scheme I will continue to monitor closely the progress of other large scale projects in the CSF as a whole to see if savings are likely to be identified in any area which would enable us to reintroduce the scheme in a modified form.
