In the late spring and early summer of last year we had exceptionally heavy rainfall to the point where for the two months of May and June rainfall in County Dublin was almost three times the normal level. In counties Kildare and Wicklow it was almost two and a half times the normal level and in County Wexford it was two and a quarter times the normal level. That was followed by persistent rain through the months of June and July.
That has created enormous problems for a great many agricultural and horticultural producers in those areas. The case of the horticultural producers and potato growers in north Dublin and south Meath is well documented; we have heard all about it although the Minister has taken no action in this regard so far. In fact, in most cases huge proportions of their crops were literally washed out.
In regard to cereals, sugar beet, fodder beet, potatoes and other crops, in County Wexford a total of 11,124 acres were seriously damaged and 6,241 acres were destroyed. That has created an enormous income problem for those growers. Their position at the moment is that not only have they been unable to pay last year's bills but they are not in a position now to request the kind of credit they would normally seek in order to start a new year's operation. Most of these people have lost a huge proportion of the output of their farms for the season, including 1993, and the majority of them are simply not in a position to restart production for this year. Therefore, their situation is extremely perilous.
Some weeks ago, the Minister for Agriculture, Food and Forestry announced that he was making available £1 million to deal with the problem. That would not begin to deal with even a part of the financing problem that those producers face. However, so far as the Minister has not released any application forms for this money and he tried to persuade the listening public last night that the problem was that farmers had not bothered to apply for any of this aid. Farmers cannot apply for this aid because no application forms have been made available. The Minister for Finance announced yesterday in the budget that £1 million was being made available. This is the same £1 million that the Minister for Agriculture, Food and Forestry announced some weeks ago. Not only are they trying to pull the wool over our eyes, they are trying to spend the same £1 million twice. They are making it impossible to allocate this aid because no application forms for this aid are available.
That sum of money will go nowhere towards meeting the problem. These people do not want handouts, they want assistance to enable them to begin to fund their operations for this year, taking account of the fact that most of their income for last year was literally washed out and they have no basis on which to start their operations this year.
What concerns me most is that I can find no evidence that the Minister for Agriculture, Food and Forestry understands the problem. For example, last summer he told me when we were three feet deep in Rathangan trying to harvest silage that he had seen no weather problems anywhere in the country. As far as I can determine he has not sought anything other than the £1 million that has been made available. If the Minister thought for one moment about the problem and took the advice of the Teagasc officials who have carried out detailed surveys, he would find that there is a major financing problem for this relatively small number of growers in north Dublin, south Meath, along the coastal strip of Wicklow and in County Wexford.
Will the Minister now take some action to put in place something similar to the funding system that was announced for small businesses yesterday in the budget under which finance is being made available at 6¼ per cent to help them get over their difficulties? I would like to ask the Minister if he would begin to consider a measure such as that. He should wipe the slate clean in regard to what has not been done up to now and start again. Will the Minister discuss this problem with representatives of the growers involved? Last Monday week, for example, the Minister promised to meet the then President of the IFA, Alan Gillis, following a meeting on a national pay agreement to discuss this matter. That meeting fell through. The Minister has not met any of the representatives of these people. I would like him to undertake now to meet the representatives of these groups, come forward with some reasonable system for financing so that they can get their operations underway again and resolve a problem that should have been resolved a long time ago.
