Vol. 423 No. 1
409 Mr. Sheehan asked the Minister for Agriculture and Food the number of applications which his Department has received for bulk refrigerated tanks since the commencement of the renewed scheme of bulk grants in June 1992; and the number of the said applications in respect of which grants are now paid by his Department.
An amount of 5 million ECU to finance measures aimed at improving the quality of milk was secured by Ireland in the context of the 1991-92 prices negotiations. Implementation of the grant scheme for on-farm milk cooling equipment funded from this source is contracted to ICOS and as a result individual applications and payments are not handled by my Department.
The September 1992 quarterly report from ICOS to my Department indicates that a total of 1,460 applications have been received since the commencement of the scheme; all of these have been paid a 60 per cent instalment of the grant allowable.
I decided in September 1992 to improve the grants available under the scheme; these improvements will apply retrospectively to the 1,460 applications referred to above.
I have also secured the agreement of the EC Commission to a further 5 million ECU funding for measures for the improvement of milk quality in 1993-94.
