Dáil Éireann díospóireacht -
Thursday, 28 Feb 2002

Vol. 550 No. 1

Adjournment Debate. - Compensation Payments.

Mr. Dukes:

I am grateful to the Ceann Comhairle for allowing me to raise this matter this evening. Two weeks ago today, in response to a priority question, the Minister for Agriculture, Food and Rural Development informed me that up to 12 February this year 44 flocks had been depopulated and a 45th flock was in the process of being depopulated in the context of the anti-scrapie programme. The Minister said that completed the current phase of the programme. I do not know how many animals are involved in that but it would be quite a substantial number.

The understanding had been that compensation payments would be made to the farmers concerned within 14 days of the flocks being depopulated. We are now at least 14 days from the end of depopulation of 45 flocks and my information yesterday is that farmers in County Wexford, whose flocks have been depopulated have not yet been paid.

This is the latest episode in a scheme, which has turned out to be an absolute fiasco, and I do not use the word lightly. There were lengthy negotiations on the scheme itself and there are flock owners in Wexford who have been under notice since last October that their flocks were going to be culled, yet we saw no action on this until well after Christmas. There was an unseemly row in County Wexford over the weighing of sheep for the implementation of the scheme and now although the depopulation has been completed, or at least the first phase has been completed, payments have still not been made.

Will the Minister of State inform me what arrangements are being made to have these payments made and say why payments have not been made up to now? Is the Minister of State at all sensitive to the trauma and disturbance that has been suffered by flock owners and their families who have been living with this major problem and disruption of their activities since last October? Will the Minister of State assure me that these payments will be made immediately so we can put an end to this sorry episode?

Minister of State at the Department of Agriculture, Food and Rural Development (Éamon Ó Cuív):

Bá mhaith liom buíochas a ghlacadh leis an Teachta as ucht na ceiste. Aontaím leis gur ceist fíor-tábhachtach é.

The Deputy will be aware that for a number of reasons my Department has embarked upon an enhanced programme for the control and eradication of scrapie, a transmissible spongiform encephalopathy, TSE, in the same family of diseases as BSE.

Mr. Dukes:

Will the Minister of State just tell me when they are going to be paid and we can dispense with the lecture?

Éamon Ó Cuív:

Increased concern about TSEs generally, in particular because of the public health implications of BSE, and because of concerns about possible links between scrapie and BSE, has increased the focus at European level on the development of measures to establish the incidence of these diseases and eradicate them. When it comes to protecting its animal health status, Ireland has traditionally been proactive in the measures it has adopted. Its approach to dealing with BSE and, more recently, scrapie has been no different.

Mr. Dukes:

When are they going to be paid?

Éamon Ó Cuív:

I am coming to that. If the Deputy keeps interrupting me, I will sit down.

Mr. Dukes:

We do not need a lecture on spongiform encephalopathy.

Éamon Ó Cuív:

I have five minutes to speak and if the Deputy continues in this vein, the time will be up and he will not get the reply.

In this context, my Department has established a programme to control and eradicate scrapie and is implementing a policy which has three components. They are the depopulation of infected flocks, enhanced active surveillance for the disease and evaluation of genotyping. In relation to the depopulation element of this programme, all flocks which have had a case of scrapie since 1 January 1999 have been depopulated. Flocks with cases confirmed prior to 1 January 1999 will be examined on a case by case basis to determine whether similar action is required. This is necessary because scrapie is a disease of flocks, rather than of individual animals and is horizontally transmissible, particularly at lambing time. This is borne out by the fact that of the flocks depopulated to date, 62% have had multiple cases of the disease. In one instance, a flock was found to have contained 29 scrapie positive sheep, including the animal which first tested positive in the flock. It is also the case that the scrapie agent has the capability of surviving on farms for a considerable period following depopulation and, for this reason, the flock owners concerned cannot restock with sheep for a period of two years following depopulation.

Now we come to the information that is of interest to the Deputy. Against this background, my Department, following a series of negotiations with the IFA on behalf of affected farmers, agreed a framework for compensation of farmers whose flocks have been depopulated. This package includes payment for the capital value of the sheep depopulated on the basis of an agreed framework, payment of income support for the two years during which repopulation is not permitted and payment for the third year in which restocking can commence. In other words, one gets a capital sum as well as compensation for the income loss for three years.

My Department has also agreed to consider any additional cost to the flock owner arising from the need to restock, subject to a technical assessment to determine the extent of such costs. The payments to which the Deputy refers in his question relate to the capital value of sheep slaughtered, as the first tranche of income support payments will not fall due until later in the year. In this regard, the present position is that of the 46 flocks slaughtered since 14 December 2001, 24 flock owners have been paid, nine claims have been processed and payment will issue in the very near future and the remaining 13 payments are being processed for payment. Of these 13 payments, the earliest depopulation was on 14 January, with the majority removed in late January or early February. Was it not worth the Deputy's while waiting for that?

My Department has arranged for the payment, on account, of a portion of the sums due to these 13 flock owners and I expect the balance of the payments to be processed over the course of next week. There is good meat in this.

Mr. Dukes:

The Minister of State should have started with that.

Éamon Ó Cuív:

I have kept the best to last. Is that not what is always done?

Despite our best efforts, the intervention of the Christmas holiday period combined with the fact that this is a new scheme, the need for differentiation between different weights and categories of sheep for payment purposes and the need for receipt of extremely precise data from the slaughter plant, which must in turn be checked by Department staff, caused the slowing up of the payment process. I am satisfied that matters are now moving more smoothly, as evidenced by the details I have given. They must not be telling the Deputy what is going on.

It was intended from the very outset that certain features of the scheme would be reviewed at an early date and my Department will shortly be meeting the IFA for that purpose.