Dáil Éireann debate -
Thursday, 23 Jun 1994

Vol. 444 No. 3

Written Answers. - EU Grant Application Forms.

John Connor

Question:

105 Mr. Connor asked the Minister for Agriculture, Food and Forestry his views on whether the latest application documents issued by his Department to farmers under the various EU headage and premia schemes for which the closing date is 30 June 1994, are complicated and show none of the simplification of these documents promised by him.

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

The integrated administration and control system, introduced under EU regulations, which applied to the special beef premium and suckler cow schemes in 1993 has, this year, been extended to the disadvantaged areas headage scheme. This has necessarily meant that the application forms have had to be revised to take account of the necessity of entering the individual eartag numbers of animals applied on under those schemes. I fully appreciate that this new requirement will mean that farmers will have to take extra care in completing applications. However, the information requested on applications is no more than is necessary for processing applications in accordance with EU regulations.

I can assure the Deputy that my Department is continuously monitoring all aspects of the schemes with a view to keeping the administrative procedures as simple as possible within the constraints of the EU regulations. Given, however, that the headage and premia schemes involve considerable amounts of money — as much as £640 million annually when the CAP reform are fully in place in 1995 — it is not unreasonable that the EU Commission lays down very strict guidelines for the filling of forms and the meeting of other requirements. Detailed help sheets have been made available with all the scheme applications and in addition assistance is available to farmers by way of the Teagasc CAP consultancy service. My Department in conjunction with theFarmers Journal last week published detailed guidelines and check lists on the completion of the application forms which issued recently and I believe that this will be of further benefit to scheme applicants.