The Common Agricultural Policy reform measures agreed by the Council of Ministers in December last switched the emphasis in the market support system for the beef sector from intervention purchasing towards direct payments to farmers under livestock and headage premium payments. These changes have major implications for the work levels in the local offices which operate the headage and livestock schemes, under which £340 million was paid out in 1992 to 289,000 farmers. Payments should be well in excess of £600 million in 1995 and by 1986 they should be £700 million per annum. By any standards that is a very considerable amount of annual payments to farmers under the livestock schemes. This year, the first year of the Common Agricultural Policy reform, there were considerable demands in the processing of those applications.
The principal changes in the context of this debate are: an increase in the payments made under the special beef premium and suckler cow premium from £35.15 and £68.54 per head in 1992 to £86.15 and £134.02 respectively, in 1995; payments under the special beef premium to be paid twice in an animal's lifetime, that is, at ten months and 22 months — previously an animal received the premium only once in its lifetime; a deseasonalisation slaughter premium valued at £52.73 per head will be paid on male bovines slaughtered between 1 January and 30 April — this is to encourage more even slaughtering patterns throughout the year; an extensification premium of £26.36 per head payable on suckler cows and male bovines on holdings with low stocking rates. Other measures include the introduction of quotas at national and individual farmer levels; national reserves and leasing and transfer of quotas.
It is estimated that up to 250,000 applications will be received under the special beef, suckler cow, deseasonalisation, ewe premium and sheep headage schemes between 15 November 1992 and 31 March 1993 whereas the number of applications received in the same period last year amounted to approximately 90,000-100,000. This was because applications were confined during this period last year to sheep schemes and a small number of applications under the special beef premium and suckler cow schemes.
There are three main reasons for the substantial increase in the number of applications to be received by the Department during this period. First, the Department allowed farmers to submit a second application under the special beef premium scheme in November-December 1992 in order to facilitate those who might otherwise not have been able to make full claims last year. Second, a greater number of farmers than normal delayed their applications for the suckler cow scheme until December in order to give themselves more time to establish their individual quotas.
Third, the Department accepted applications under the special beef premium scheme during the months of January and February of this year in order to ensure that Irish farmers secured the maximum benefits from this scheme and the related spring slaughter premium scheme. As I mentioned earlier, the new arrangements for the special beef premium scheme provide for a second instalment of the premium to be paid at 22 months. The fact that this instalment is payable at an age when some male bovines are close to slaughter requires the Department to be more flexible than in the past in so far as application periods are concerned. For this reason, the Department intends to have three application periods for this scheme. The Department will also have to process applications under the spring slaughter scheme. In view of the very significant and substantial increase in the workload caused by these measures and the financial importance of these schemes to the farming community, a decision was made to assign additional staff to this area on a temporary basis.
In addition, the Department has the task of establishing individual quotas for the ewe premium and suckler cow premium schemes. The regulations governing these schemes provide for the quotas to be established on the basis of the number of animals for which farmers were paid premia in a reference year. However, the individual farmers who had particular problems in the reference year may choose as their reference year a year other than the reference year chosen by the Department. While this flexibility is obviously most welcome in that it meets the concerns of many farmers who had particular problems in the reference year, it also places a substantial burden on the Department which will have to examine thousands of individual files manually in order to establish the precise entitlements of farmers. The burden of this work load will fall on the local offices of the Department.
As the House is undoubtedly aware, the new arrangements also include provisions for the establishment and allocation of a national reserve and a special reserve for the disadvantaged areas. I expect that there will be a substantial number of applications for these reserves and these will have to be processed by offices of the Department. The Department will also have to monitor and approve transfers and leasing of quotas.
On the question of the payment of farm development grants, the fact is that in January of this year £3.882 million was paid to 1,066 applicants under the control of farmyard pollution and farm improvement programmes. It is estimated that £3.27 million will be paid to 840 applicants in February, while an additional £3.2 million will be paid in March. The remaining payments amounting to approximately £1.5 million will be paid as soon as they can be processed.
I wish to emphasise that it is only the clerical staff of the farm development service who have been transferred; all other personnel in that area will continue working normally. Furthermore, the assignment of these staff to other duties is a temporary measure and they will revert to their normal duties as soon as possible.
