Dáil Éireann debate -
Thursday, 14 Feb 2002

Vol. 548 No. 4

Written Answers. - Grant Payments.

Brendan Howlin

Question:

50 Mr. Howlin asked the Minister for Agriculture, Food and Rural Development the outcome of a protest staged recently by the ICSA at his Department's offices in Mayo regarding non-payment of suckler cow premiums; and if he will make a statement on the matter. [4952/02]

Minister for Agriculture, Food and Rural Development (Mr. Walsh)

The position is that under the suckler cow premium scheme my Department is obliged to carry out a range of checks and controls including cross-checks against the bovine animal database CMMS with a view to ensuring, inter alia, that the animals applied on were in the herd at time of application; the animals applied on, or suitable replacements, remained in the herd for the full retention period; and the heifer-cow ratio is respected.

Under the 2001 suckler cow premium scheme, over 1.1 million animal tag numbers have been cross-checked in this manner and difficulties initially arose in respect of about 30,000 tags or 2.7% of animals. These difficulties mainly relate to farm-to-farm movements where, unfortunately, either the seller or buyer or both fail to notify the movement to the CMMS. Staff at local offices are also experiencing difficulties with birth and death notifications to the database. In quite a number of cases, animals being applied on as cows were, according to the CMMS, heifers at time of application. In other words if the animal calved down, the birth was not properly notified to the database. It has also transpired that some 2,500 farmers who have already received an advance payment now appear to have slaughtered cows before the end of the retention period without notifying my Department of eligible replacements.

In addition, there are other outstanding queries under this scheme relating to issues such as area aid problems, milk quota etc. In all such cases the farmers concerned have been advised of the outstanding problem.

My Department met with representatives of the ICSA protesters and impressed on them that every effort, through contact with individual herdowners, is being made to have all outstanding cases cleared for payment. In this connection it is most important that farmers respond promptly to any queries. In many cases my Department is failing to get a response to its initial query necessitating the issue of second and sometimes third reminders. When outstanding queries in relation to a case are resolved the farmer can expect to receive payment within the following week. To date 93% of all applicants under the suckler cow premium scheme have been paid 80% advances amounting to some €153 million. In addition, balancing payments commenced on 31 January 2002 and over €37 million has been paid to date bringing the total paid overall to €190.5 million.