My colleague, Deputy Danny Healy-Rae, and many other Deputies raised the delays in GLAS payments in the House a few weeks ago. Huge fines, penalties and levies are imposed on people who cannot pay their taxes. It was not good enough for the Minister, Deputy Creed, to say in this week's Irish Farmers Journal that these delays have been caused by technical hitches. He told Deputy Healy-Rae a few weeks ago that there was a computer glitch. It is not acceptable. Farmers are decent people who pay their bills. They like to pay the people they hire in to do work. Now those people cannot get paid. Farmers are embarrassed out of their minds because they need the grant money, to which they are entitled for environmental reasons, to pay the bills of people they have employed. They are in the invidious situation of waiting for money from the Department of Agriculture, Food and the Marine. Computer glitches and technical hitches are no good to them. They want the money to which they are entitled. Everything was approved before they started. This is a nonsense. Revenue imposes penalties and penal rates of interest on people who fail to pay their taxes, but farmers and others who are waiting for money from the State cannot get anything. It is totally unacceptable.

I call Deputy Murphy O'Mahony on the same matter.

The programme for Government contains a commitment to secure farm incomes. How can the Taoiseach stand over the delays in the payment of compensation to tillage farmers in the constituency of Cork South-West? Like other farmers throughout the country, they are also waiting on their GLAS payments.

I call Deputy McConalogue on the same matter.

I would like to ask the Taoiseach about the GLAS payments that were mentioned by Deputy Mattie McGrath and the tillage compensation that was mentioned by Deputy Murphy O'Mahony.

The Minister, Deputy Creed, is in danger of getting a slot or a call-up by Mr. Joe Schmidt for this weekend's match because of his considerable talent at kicking to touch the issue of a tillage fund. We had a vote in the Dáil and he committed to a tillage forum to examine how a fund could be put in place. From that last week we still have not got any further progress. Further to Deputy Murphy O'Mahony's comments, will there definitely be a tillage fund and will the Taoiseach and the Minister, Deputy Creed, ensure the fund is put in place as soon as possible?

I am sure the Minister will follow through in his comments about a tillage fund. I say to Deputy Murphy O'Mahony and any other Deputies raising the question of GLAS payments that payments of any grants from any Department depend on two factors: availability of money and eligibility or conformity with the conditions.

They are eligible.

These people are eligible.

I am sure the Minister for Agriculture, Food and the Marine is not saying some payments cannot be made because of some technical hitch. There must be a reason for this. The money is in place and the applications have come in. Do they conform with the requirements for release of the money? These payments have been made in the vast majority of cases and I am quite sure the Minister for Agriculture, Food and the Marine and his staff are working very hard to see that the remaining payments are made. They were put in place in the first place in order that the farmers could apply for and draw down assistance from the State, which was very hard-won in the first instance. We want that to be able to continue to guarantee incomes. That is why in the budget the Minister for Finance introduced the position that when there are exceptional years, such as that seen by tillage farmers in 2016, a gap year would be allowed for recovery. The farmers were not able to get crops from the fields in the first place.