Dáil Éireann díospóireacht -
Wednesday, 9 Feb 1994

Vol. 438 No. 5

Adjournment Debate. - Delay in Payment of Special Beef Premium.

Mr. Connaughton

Thank you for the opportunity to raise this matter. I wish to draw attention to a problem costing many individual farmers up to £2,000 as a result of the Department of Agriculture, Food and Forestry not making the rules governing the January-February 1993 special beef premium scheme clear and easily understood.

Because of time restrictions, I can only briefly outline what happened to two small County Galway farmers who are deemed ineligible for the special beef premium scheme because they did not have the identity cards stamped at the local district veterinary office. A farmer in the Colemanstown area of Ballinasloe applied for payment under the special beef premium scheme in January-February 1993 in respect of 11 twenty-two months old bullocks. This farmer genuinely believed he did not have to get the cards stamped at the district veterinary office. He said he was given information early in 1993 to the effect that if the Department required the cards to be stamped, they would ask the farmer to forward his cards to the office. I have reason to believe that some of the district veterinary offices throughout the country also believed that a circular would be sent to the farmers but this did not happen. This farmer applied for and received the ten month bullock premium without the cards being stamped. Is it any wonder he was confused? He understood that if he presented a mart or factory sales sheet, which included the tag numbers, he would be eligible under the scheme but he has been refused payment.

Another farmer outside Ballinasloe applied for the premia for 22 bullocks in the same January-February 1993 period. He, like his fellow countryman, believed that if the Department required the cards for stamping it would write for them. This farmer stands to lose 22 premia at £52 each, which is £1,144, together with the extensification grant of £28 per head, which adds up to another £616. All in all he stands to lose £1,760. What crime would a person have to commit before a judge in a court of law would fine him £1,760? I could give an endless litany of such cases in east Galway alone. There must be thousands of such cases throughout the country. Taking into account the obvious confusion and the fact that this period coincided with the beginning of the new CAP regime, surely farmers cannot be victimised to this extent and the Minister could devise some system to solve this once-off problem.

There seems to be a jinx on the January-February 1993 application date. With regard to the age factor for the scheme, many farmers believed what they saw. According to the advice leaflet supplied by the Department if an animal was 21 months old on the date of the application it would be eligible for grant purposes. This did not work out in practice and several hundred farmers got caught out unfairly.

I understand that yesterday some changes were made in this area. I thank the Minister and I would appreciate it if he would spell out exactly what it means. I understand one month is disregarded, which would be beneficial. I am sure the Minister is fully aware of the frustration and anger felt by farmers who genuinely believe that the rules of the game were not made sufficiently clear. In the circumstances, surely this matter can be satisfactorily resolved between the Department and the European Commission. I am sure the Minister has hundreds of representations on this issue and something must be done. I will be extremely thankful for any help the Minister can give.

Minister of State at the Department of Agriculture, Food and Forestry (Mr. O'Shea)

I thank Deputy Connaughton for raising this important issue, but it is not true, as the Deputy alleges, that applicants under the January- February 1993 special beef premium scheme were given misleading information about the stamping of cattle identity cards. At Term and Condition 5 which accompanied every application, applicants were advised that if they were not the subject of an on-farm inspection they were obliged to forward the cattle identity cards of the male cattle being submitted for the premium to the local office of my Department for scrutiny, punching and stamping before the sale of any such cattle. Had all January-February 1993 applicants followed this instruction there would have been very few problems relating to the punching of cattle identity cards during this application period. Unfortunately, however, many did not and many problems arose as a result.

My Department is showing considerable flexibility in addressing these problems. Where male cattle were sold for slaughter and taken out of the system, for example, payment has been made following receipt of documentary evidence of sale for slaughter after any retention period required. Where cattle are sold for export to countries outside the European Union, to take another example, I have just recently announced that the premium may be paid on such cattle retained by the applicant for the required period provided satisfactory documentary proof of such export can be provided. In both of these cases staff of my Department, either at the meat factories or at ports of export, would have seen the cattle identity cards of such animals and this has been deemed adequate for payment.

Where cattle are sold at marts to other farmers, however, and we do not know whether they have been taken out of the system through slaughter or whether they can be presented for premium again by the purchasers in the June 1993 application period, my Department has had no choice but to refuse payment on such cattle. The January-February 1993 applicant, after all, failed to get the cattle identity cards stamped as required by that scheme and the June 1993 applicant would feel aggrieved if he or she, having bought an animal with clean ears and clean cards and having sent those cards in with the June 1993 application, was denied the premium on an animal apparently fully eligible at the time of the application in respect of which he or she scrupulously observed all the requirements of the June 1993 scheme. I cannot see how we could do otherwise but choose to pay in the later application period to the applicant who complied with all EU requirements rather than in the earlier period to a non-complying applicant.

My Department and I accept that there was some confusion early in 1993 during the introduction of the new CAP reform regime in relation go acceptable ages of animals. Given this, I consulted the EU Commission on the matter and announced recently that I was allowing a month's tolerance in respect of the January-February and June 1993 application periods so that no applicant would be unfairly penalised as a result of this confusion. As farmers had grown more familiar with the age requirements by the time the November 1993 and January-February 1994 application periods came around, there was no need for this tolerance and no justification for continuing it and, indeed, we are not doing so. Instead, I have asked farmers to adhere to the age bands advised to them by my Department during these and all future application periods under this scheme.

I hope that the flexibility I have encouraged within my Department on these two issues will result in a speeding up of any outstanding January-February 1993 special beef premium payments which can be made under the EU Regulations.

My Department can, of course, only do so much. We cannot process problem cases where farmers fail to respond to inquiries from my Department. By way of example, as many as 40,000 June 1993 special beef premium applicants have had to be written to at least once in relation to particular problems. Responses are very slow and this is a major factor in determining the speed at which payments can be made.