Before coming to the Order of Business, I propose to deal with a number of notices under Standing Order 32. I will call on Deputies in the order in which they submitted notices to my office. First, I call Deputy Paul Connaughton.
Requests to move Adjournment of Dáil under Standing Order 32
I seek the Adjournment of the Dáil under Standing Order 32 to raise an urgent matter of national importance concerning the failure of the Minister for Agriculture, Fisheries and Food and his Department to pay out the correct single farm payment and area based payment to thousands of farmers in the past month; to establish the reason farmers were not contacted earlier in the year about alleged mapping errors given that the applications were in the Department as long ago as last April; to establish why some farmers received letters outlining problems that did not exist; to establish why it has taken the private company, which is re-digitising the maps in question, so long to complete the exercise; and if the Minister is aware of the vast number of farmers who have bank commitments to meet and who are now in grave financial circumstances as a result of this bureaucratic mess. It is time the Minister did something about this.
Hear, hear.
This is directly the call of the Minister and he cannot blame anyone else for it.
Hear, hear.
(Interruptions).
Deputy Connaughton should resume his seat please.
Some 90% of farmers have got it. Deputy Connaughton is misrepresenting the case as usual. We are six weeks ahead with the single farm payment.
I call Deputy Finian McGrath.
(Interruptions).
Will Members desist from engaging across the floor, please?
The figures are off the wall.
Deputy Connaughton is misrepresenting the case as usual.
(Interruptions).
Deputy Connaughton, please.
(Interruptions).
The Minister for Agriculture, please. I call Deputy Finian McGrath.
I have given that commitment.
Deputy McGrath without interruption, please.
It is very hard to get a word in around here, especially when one is an Independent.
He could introduce a Good Friday agreement.
The Minister for Justice and Law Reform was not right in that case either.
I got four minutes last week, Ceann Comhairle.
The Deputy is a very mild man. He must be right.
The Minister is not right.
(Interruptions).
Deputy Durkan, please. Deputy McGrath is in possession.
I seek leave to move a motion for the Adjournment of the Dáil under Standing Order 32 to discuss an issue of national importance and concern, namely, the urgent need to protect services and benefits for the sick, the disabled and our senior citizens. I deplore any attempt in the recent Department of Finance documents to sack teachers, cut pensioners, reduce carers' payments, cut drug payment schemes and long-term benefits and any proposed cuts to cystic fibrosis patients. I call on all Members to resist these cuts to our social services and to make these issues a priority in the build-up to the budget.
The Minister for Agriculture, Fisheries and Food has taken his eye off the ball. He also took his eye off the maps and he is getting very red about the gills on this issue.
Hear, hear.
Will the Deputy stick to the script, please?
I seek the Adjournment of the Dáil under Standing Order 32 to raise a matter of national and local importance, namely, the failure by the Department of Agriculture, Fisheries and Food to honour the plan to pay farmers half their EU annual subsidy leaving the rural economy at a loss of €635 million. Shame on the Minister.
I call Deputy Aengus Ó Snodaigh.
More than 90% of farmers in Longford have already got their payments.
(Interruptions).
Ba mhaith liom an Dáil a chur ar Athló faoi Bhuan-Ordú 32 chun an gné ríthábhachtach seo a phlé: the need for the Government to recognise that it is not acceptable to claim to be interested in protecting the vulnerable while stating that everything is on the table in its consideration of cuts and to acknowledge the areas of public service provision which have been chronically under-funded for decades and which should have been off the table from the outset such as, for example, mental health services, in which spending is now at its lowest level in modern history. More than half of all staff cut from the HSE in 2009 came from the mental health services despite mental health representing only 9% of the HSE workforce. Residential conditions in some centres are inhumane. Some 200 children were admitted to adult centres due to the dearth of appropriate facilities and people with intellectual disabilities are in inappropriate places in psychiatric institutions in large numbers. There is an urgent need for the Government, at a minimum, to hold funding for mental health at its current level next year.
Having considered the matters raised, they are not in order under Standing Order 32.