Is the Minister aware of the difficulty for the north western co-operatives in the uptake of the scheme? Has he any plans to have an across-the-board national uptake of this scheme to ameliorate the problems and difficulties of the north western co-operatives?

If you will excuse me, Sir, I intend to answer that under Question No. 16 which has been tabled by Deputy J. Leonard specifically on that point. I want to refer to the question which Deputy Walsh raised. Originally the compensation under this cessation scheme was settled at 14.5p a gallon for each year of seven years. With the green £ devaluation that went up to 15.3p a gallon and as a result of this week's meeting in Brussels it has now gone up to 23p a gallon. Up to the beginning of this week the 2 per cent which we are due to cut under the cessation scheme in 1987 was subscribed to the extent of 68 per cent — 68 per cent of the 2 per cent had been taken up. It is obvious that we are going to have a massive flood of applications because of the increased compensation, and that creates a difficulty for me as to whether I should give first preference to people who applied before the price increase was given or whether I should pool all the applications and have a ballot. I will have to give a great deal of thought to that, but one can imagine that it will be heavily over-subscribed.