asked the Minister for Agriculture and Fisheries if he will increase the staff of the land project offices in County Mayo in order to reduce the delay in the processing of land reclamation applications.

This was recently done, following a substantial increase in the number of applications in the county.

Is the Minister aware that in Mayo there is a backlog of at least 15 months with regard to these applications? The staff of the land project office in Mayo cannot cope with all the work and I would ask the Minister to increase the number of staff immediately.

That has been done already. I am quite concerned about the situation in Mayo because the position there is most unsatisfactory. Every step will be taken to reduce the waiting list.