I thank the Ceann Comhairle. I agree with the previous speakers, but there are other issues of serious concern too. Today we need time to debate farmers' payments and the delay in same, up to months for some people. A staggering 9,300 farmers are waiting since early 2024 on delayed agri-climate rural environment scheme, ACRES, payments, 2,300 of whom are waiting for their payments since 2023. There are also farmers in the targeted agricultural modernisation scheme, TAMS, and the suckler carbon efficiency programme, SCEP, waiting for urgent payment. The Minister has promised to solve this issue, but if farmers are waiting almost two years for their income, it puts them under enormous pressure. A debate must be had in this House immediately to try to address that issue.

Sentiment score: 0.03

This weekend's CSO figures on visitors to this country have cast a serious doubt over our once glorious tourism sector. The figures show a drop of 20% in the number of visitors in January and 30% in February. Visitor spending has dropped 31% in those two months compared to last year and overnight bed bookings are down 33%. This is a concern for cities like Dublin, Galway, Cork, Waterford and others but it is also a disaster for rural communities like west Cork, Kerry, Connemara, other areas and more if this trend continues. The reasons given are cost of staying in Ireland, cost of food spiralling out of control and the low availability of hotel space, as many of our traditional hotels are now IPAS centres. This is not a dip. It is a collapse unless measures are immediately put in place to counteract this drop, such as a decrease in the VAT rate from 13.5% to 9% and the freeing up of hotels throughout the country. What are the Government's plans to counteract this huge fall in the tourism sector numbers?

Sentiment score: -0.06