Due to the continuous wet weather since last August, many farmers are in a bad way. Having fed animals for four and a half months, most of their feed is gone. Land is saturated and no one knows when it will recover or when farmers will be able to let their animals out again.

Climate change.

GLAS payments are being held up again. If one person on a commonage has a problem with land and has a payment delayed, the rest of the farmers will not be paid either.

At the end of 2016, €106 million returned to the Exchequer from the agriculture Vote. I ask the Taoiseach to ensure that farmers will not be left without assistance, especially those who run out of fodder. People with grain had no incomes in 2016. They received very little help and they had to fight hard just to get that. Will the Taoiseach ensure that farmers do not go through the same hardship this year? Many more are involved. They must be looked after and given help.

Deputies McConalogue and Michael Healy-Rae may speak on the same matter briefly.

Early in the morning on the Friday before Christmas, I spoke early to the Minister for Agriculture, Food and the Marine about this important subject. We are being told that IT issues are stopping GLAS payments from being made. It was the same story last year and the year before. I will explain to the Taoiseach what a GLAS payment is. It is the farmer's lifeline and is needed desperately to keep a household going. It is the difference between making ends meet and not. Why are IT issues for the third year in a row-----

Scandalous.

-----stopping farmers from receiving this payment? It is their money. They are entitled to it. They should have it, but it is being delayed. They owe contractors for last year's work. They owe creameries and co-ops.

The point has been made.

They need their cheques now.

Deputy Danny Healy-Rae indicated that there was €106 million of an underspend in the Department of Agriculture, Food and the Marine in 2016. According to a reply I received to a parliamentary question, there was a €75 million underspend in that Department last year.

Like me, the Taoiseach will attend the IFA's annual general meeting, AGM, this evening. The Minister for Agriculture, Food and the Marine attended A meeting of the fodder action group yesterday but the farming organisation representatives left that empty-handed and with no sense of how the Government intends to respond. Will the Taoiseach and the Minister once again leave farming representatives empty-handed tonight and in the coming weeks or will the Taoiseach, once and for all, show some leadership in this regard and deliver a meal voucher scheme, which is required in those areas of the country experiencing an acute fodder shortage?

Deputy Michael Healy-Rae will be delighted to know that I know exactly what GLAS is. I am aware of the detail of all sorts of payments-----

Will we get an answer to the question?

-----that I do not receive-----

If the Taoiseach solved the problem, he would be a better man.

-----as is, I think, everyone in this House. That is the nature of our work. As Deputy McConalogue pointed out, the Minister, Deputy Creed, and I will be attending the IFA AGM this evening.

Do not go with empty pockets.

I will certainly bring it up-----

The Taoiseach will bring it up.

I will certainly raise it with the IFA and ensure that it gets a response.

That is their-----

That about sums it up, Taoiseach.

Could we have order, please?

Will the Taoiseach bring up the money?

That completes the Order of Business. I am afraid that time has run out. We must proceed.

This is the classic commentator role.

With the Minister, obviously, not with the IFA.