asked the Minister for Finance if in view of the problems which farmers are experiencing at the present time he will ask the Agricultural Credit Corporation to postpone instalments falling due in the period 1st November, 1966, to 1st May, 1967; and if he will ask the Agricultural Credit Corporation to withhold any legal proceedings against farmers for the present.
Ceisteanna—Questions. Oral Answers. - Agricultural Credit Corporation Loans.
13.
It is the normal practice of the Agricultural Credit Corporation to deal sympathetically with requests for time for payment of instalments where the farmer has a genuine reason for inability to pay. In the circumstances, I am not satisfied that action by me on the lines suggested by the Deputy is called for.
Does the Minister not agree that the circumstances at the present time are exceptional and that if the Agricultural Credit Corporation proceed for the payments that would be made if things were normal, it is a question of taking away the umbrella when it starts to rain and that all confidence in the Agricultural Credit Corporation will be lost?
The Deputy must have experience of this as I have. I think the Agricultural Credit Corporation take a reasonable attitude to people who are temporarily in difficulty. The Deputy surely knows that from past experience.
If they are not reasonable, will the Minister intervene?
I do not think it will be necessary for the Minister to intervene on this occasion.
14.
asked the Minister for Finance if, in the case of small farmers granted loans by the Agricultural Credit Corporation to enable them to retain livestock, he will arrange to have these loans interest free or at a reduced rate and not at the present high rate of 7¼ per cent.
The loans in question are meant to be for a short term only and will normally be repaid by next July. The State is already substantially supporting cattle prices in the present difficult marketing situation by headage payments on live fat cattle exports to the United Kingdom and by subsidy payments on carcase beef exported to the United Kingdom. In the circumstances I do not consider that a reduction in the normal interest rate on these loans is warranted.
Does the Minister not appreciate that this is one of the few ways in which the small farmer can be assisted? The headage grants are not really assisting him but assisting the man with the big number of cattle.
15.
asked the Minister for Finance if the Agricultural Credit Corporation has honoured loans to the extent of about £600,000 which it had withdrawn because farmers had not been availing themselves of them within the specified period of three months.
I presume that the Deputy is referring to the loan offers for unproductive purposes which were cancelled by the Agricultural Credit Corporation because they were not taken up within the time stipulated by the Corporation. As I have already indicated in reply to earlier questions on this subject these offers must be regarded as lapsed and they cannot be revived by the Corporation as long as the present policy continues of restricting loans to productive purposes only. It is not possible to say when the Corporation will be in a position to resume the issue of loans of the kind at present discontinued.
(Cavan): Would the Minister agree that the Agricultural Credit Corporation honoured some of the cancelled loans, and could he say on what basis some of these loans were honoured and some of them were not honoured?
It would be difficult to reply to that question. Deputies from rural districts have had the experience of dealing with borderline cases. The Deputy is aware that loans were refused at a certain point and in regard to certain transactions where the full obligations of the person applying for the money had not yet been completed. No doubt there are exceptions but I could not give, in answer to a Parliamentary Question, the circumstances in which the few exceptions were made.
(Cavan): Further arising out of the Minister's reply, I should like him to make a statement on it, because I can assure him it is very difficult to follow the reasoning on which some of these loans were granted and some of them were not granted.
Is it not well known that this was a device used by the Agricultural Credit Corporation at the time to avoid giving loans? If we want to restore confidence in the Agricultural Credit Corporation, these should be honoured. The great difficulty we had was to get people to accept money.
The Deputy knows the amount of money issued by the Agricultural Credit Corporation for productive purposes actually increased and, taking the last three years together, it was far greater than ever before in its history.
It took a lot of presure to increase it.
16.
asked the Minister for Finance the number of applications received by the Agricultural Credit Corporation under the scheme of instalment credit facilities for the purchase of dairy livestock, which was introduced in June, 1966; and the number of loans issued under this scheme.
The number of applications received by the Agricultural Credit Corporation is 280; of these, 180 have been approved to date and 97 loans have been issued.