I welcome the Minister's statement that payments will issue forthwith. Small scale pig producers in my constituency are very appreciative of the efforts made by the Minister and the Minister of State, Deputy O'Keeffe, to bring about an improvement in this area.
Does the Minister agree that to introduce long-term stability to the pigmeat sector it is necessary to have a major state of the art processing facility in the northern half of the country to service the six Northern Ireland counties and the six southern Border counties? Can the Minister assure me that the Department and the food development agencies, in conjunction with the Ministry of Agriculture and the Industrial Development Board in Northern Ireland, will make every effort to ensure we have adequate processing facilities in the northern half of the country so that the lack of competition and the desperate situation which pertained for 12 to 18 months will never recur?