Minister for Agriculture not fit for job claims Cllr Gerry Dolan in row over delayed payments to farmers

Cllr Gerry Dolan said late payments “destroyed the lamb trade this year because farmers didn't have the funds to buy lambs.”
The Independent councillor said if the Minister of Agriculture is “not capable of delivering payments wen they are due, then he shouldn't be a Minister for Agriculture.”
Cllr Dolan was speaking at the Ballinamore municipal district meeting this week where he called on the Department of Agriculture to have all held up payments that have been processed for BISS, CRISS and ECO-SCHEMES to be paid by December 31 and all balancing payments issued by the middle of December.
He said, “With payments issued later this year already and many payments being held up through no fault of the farmer, it is unacceptable for balancing payments to be held up until possibly March next year.
“Also, the Department must make sure all ACRES payments are also paid by year end,” he added.
Cllr Dolan said that the “Minister for Agriculture won't wait for months for his wages and I don't think it's fair for farmers to have to wait for these payments.”
He added that farmers are blamed for emissions when there are planes flying over Ireland at any one time causing far more emissions and the farmers “are an easy target.”
He said if the minister isn't capable of “delivering the payments when they are due, he shouldn't be a Minister for Agriculture and I've no problem saying that.”
Chairperson Cllr Paddy O'Rourke noted that recently, a horse got loose on a plane forcing the flight to divert, dump fuel and land at JFK airport and refuel.
Cllr Dolan claimed that if a plane can't land at Knock and is over fuelled, it dumps the fuel over Lough Allen.
Cllr Brendan Barry said it was “too easy to blame the EU and Brussels” and said that the department “drew up the schemes and put forward the proposals for approval.”
He said when it comes to schemes such as the ACRE scheme, “the planners and those dealing with them still don't know if those schemes are going to be rolled out or how farmers are going to get paid and whether they need invoices or not.”
Cllr Barry said that farmers are waiting on money as well as contractors, marts, stores, hardware stores “and so many other people are waiting to get paid when the farmer gets paid.”
He added, “They need to do everything they can to get as much money out as soon as possible to farmers with the whole wide rural community also waiting on those funds.”
Cllr Caillian Ellis supported the motion and said it was “wrong that it's not paid” and described the ACRES scheme as a “glorified way of paying you to get out of farming eventually.”
He said the country is full of “very average fodder this year because people couldn't cut until July 1” due to the GLAS scheme.
“With a lot of these schemes, you don't own the land, you're only a tenant and I think it's unfair how they are drawn up,” he said.
He said the IFA should “look at these schemes and look at the small print before running with them.”
Cllr Barry noted that on July 1, the Department announced that farmers would not get the extra money “for doing that action, unless you got your planner out to photograph the meadow being cut.”
He said that now, many people who left it later to cut won't see any financial benefit.