Dáil Éireann debate -
Wednesday, 2 Feb 1994

Vol. 438 No. 2

Written Answers. - Premium and Headage Schemes.

James Leonard

Question:

84 Mr. Leonard asked the Minister for Agriculture, Food and Forestry the total amount of direct payments made to farmers under all schemes for the calendar year 1993 and the corresponding amount for 1992; the total number and percentage of eligible applicants paid under each of the 1993 compensatory payment schemes; and the total number and value of direct payment cheques to farmers which had to be re-issued in 1993.

Minister for Agriculture, Food and Forestry (Mr. J. Walsh)

The position is that over 500,000 payments amounting to over £377 million were made to farmers under the various premium and headage schemes in the year ended 31 December 1993. This compares to total payments of £350 million in the year ended 31 December 1992. The high payment levels in 1993 were achieved against the background of EU regulations which preclude payments under the special beef and suckler cow premium schemes before 1 November and even then limit the payments to 60 per cent advances.

Details of the amounts paid under the various 1993 schemes at 31 December 1993 are as followers:

Scheme	No. of Payments Made	Amount Paid
		£m
Cattle Headage	72,302	40.600
Beef Cow	11,104	6.015
Equine Headage	3,801	0.546
Sheep Headage	27,972	16.820
Suckler Cow (main)	62,492	33.314
Suckler Cow (small)	5,473	1.415
Deseasonalisation	15,068	8.556
Ewe Premium	48,810	69.439
Jan.-Feb. Special Beef	27,600	8.432
June-July Special Beef	29,984	5.557
Arable Aid	16,455	44.973

A large percentage of unpaid Special Beef premium cases involved various problems such as incorrect tags, no cards or incorrect cards, no herd number, incomplete application forms etc. It had been necessary to write to the individual farmers involved in order to process the cases for payment. In many cases there had been a long delay in getting responses to the queries raised.

Payments under all schemes are continuing and a further £10.5 million has been paid to farmers since 1 January 1994.

The total number of cheques which had to be re-issued to farmers in 1993 was 1,402 amounting to £787,253.78.