Brian Cowen
Question:5 Mr. Cowen asked the Minister for Agriculture, Food and Forestry the number of applications received in respect of the area aid scheme; and when these applications will be processed. [10708/96]
Ceisteanna—Questions. Oral Answers. - Area Aid Scheme.
Liam Aylward
Question:12 Mr. Aylward asked the Minister for Agriculture, Food and Forestry the number of applicants in respect of the area aid scheme; and the number of applications currently being processed. [10617/96]
I propose to take Questions Nos. 5 and 12 together.
As a result of the CPSU industrial action which prevented the processing of area aid applications, I do not have full details of the number of applications received in my Department. However, based on account of the special area aid application envelopes received in the area aid unit of my Department, it seems that the total number of 1996 applications received to date is in excess of 135,500. All but about 450 applications were received before the closing date of 15 May.
With the termination of the CPSU industrial action, the processing of the area aid applications has commenced. A processing work plan has been drawn up with the aim of ensuring that all 1996 livestock and arable aid payments will be made in accordance with the deadlines set out in the charter of rights for farmers which I put in place last year.
I note the Minister knows how many applications are in his Department, not from looking at the application forms but from counting the envelopes. As a result of the strike he has nothing but closed envelopes in his Department. Will the Minister indicate if the havoc he said had descended on his Department has lessened to any degree? When can we expect a fully functioning Department back on stream?
The important element of the question is the extension of the disadvantaged areas scheme and how that might affect headage payments. Some farmers may be affected by the number of animals for which they can apply, based on the forthcoming changes. Is an extension on 31 May envisaged? How will it be administered properly to ensure people are not penalised for submitting notionally incorrect applications based on existing areas? These would be correct if they were able to take into account the increased areas which were announced.
In relation to the CPSU dispute, I am relieved and pleased that we will be able to get back to normal. If the dispute had continued beyond 24 May, an unacceptable situation would have emerged.
By closing date, 30 April, there were about 90,000 applicants. With the Commission's permission, we extended the date to 15 May because of the dispute and there were a further 45,000 applicants. This is more than last year. That is a big step forward and I am not as concerned as I was.
Staff are now working normally. We offered the CPSU a special deal on the issue of regrading in the Department. This was accepted by the union executive on Friday night and the general pay and restructuring package was agreed on Monday night. The industrial action has been suspended pending the outcome of the ballot which will take a couple of weeks to complete. The union has recommended acceptance. My worse fears, therefore, will not be realised. I hope with goodwill on all sides, we will get back to business.
The Deputy raised some important points on headage payments. I announced the extension of the disadvantaged areas in Westmeath this morning. Some 3,000 farmers will be advised by the Department in writing that they are now entitled to receive payments. A total of 325,000 acres have been reclassified. For example, £75 is payable on a beef cow for up to 30 animals and £10 on a ewe for up to 200 animals.
December-January sheep applications will be accepted and processed on the basis that payments will be made. The closing date for the receipt of beef cow applications is extended to 7 June. The Deputy will be pleased to learn that his constituency accounts for the largest increase——
I am grateful to Deputy Joe Walsh.
How did Wexford fare?
Not well, the Deputy can blame Deputy Joe Walsh for that.
Did the Minister do anything about it?
Like the Minister for Justice, he does not interfere.
I am glad the matter which has been ongoing since 1993 has been brought to finality. Any farmer who believes his townland has been included and has not received a letter should contact the DVO. The extension of the closing date will allow the category of farmer to which the Deputy referred to apply for headage payments.
The Minister told us the Department would issue receipts within a fortnight of the receipt of area aid application forms. Unfortunately it has not done so. A farmer who submitted his application form on 28 April may not have bothered to obtain proof of postage in the sure and certain knowledge that the Department would honour its commitment and issue a receipt before 15 May.
What will be the position where a farmer has posted an application form, but will not discover until the end of June that it has either gone astray or, as in the case of other documents, been lost——
Shredded.
——or destroyed in the process of being photocopied?
Or fell off a lorry?
Or was found in a bog somewhere?
In such circumstances will he be given a second chance to submit an area aid application form because of the failure of the Department to live up to its promise?
Is it intended to extend the closing date for the receipt of suckler cow and headage grant applications because of the failure to issue promised brass tags to farmers? This is a major problem in that applicants are required to seek the assistance of a vet. In poorer parts of the west, including offshore islands, where a farmer may have only two or three calves the cost involved is astronomical and may account for the full value of the grant. Will the Minister clarify whether it is intended to extend the closing date because of the failure of the Department to deliver on its promise until all the boxes of tags have been issued?
The questioning is overlong. It should be brought to finality.
It is a multiple choice question.
What is the difference between barren rock and rock outcrops? Farmers in Connemara are seeking a clear direction as to which bits of rock are meant to be included as part of the forage area and which bits will be discounted by Department officials when they carry out spot checks.
Part of the reason we extended the deadline for the receipt of beef cow applications was the delay in issuing the new dual tags. This applies across the board, not just to those in disadvantaged areas.
We hope to issue receipts in respect of 1996 area aid applications within a fortnight so that people will know where they stand. This is not required under EU regulations.
The Department promised it.
The CPSU industrial action made this impossible. Now that it has been terminated I am arranging for the issue of receipts by the end of June to all farmers who submitted 1996 area aid applications to reassure them that their livestock and arable aid payments will be made later this year. Any applicant who does not receive a receipt by the end of June should submit any proof of postage he or she may have to the area aid unit of the Department. Heretofore, there were no receipts and farmers may have been told in October when they rang to inquire about their cheques that their area aid application forms had not been received. They should have them by the end of June. Those who are not happy or have any doubts should contact Hume House about the matter.
I encourage the Deputy to table a question about rocks as it is a separate matter.
The Minister referred to the difficulties experienced during the CPSU dispute which continued for far too long. We all suffered as a result. He indicated that staff spent their time doing crosswords instead of their work. Does he intend to apologise for this to members of the CPSU?
The Minister referred to the late receipt of area aid application forms. As he well knows, in recent years errors were made and farmers lost substantial sums of money as a consequence. When he took office I understood him to say that this would be taken into account. I have brought a number of applications to his attention. I am sure others have done likewise. Where does he now stand on this matter?
When he mentioned with some excitement the extension of disadvantaged areas the Minister took us into another field. He told me that Wexford did not fare well. Is it his intention to allow farmers who believe their lands meet the criteria to lodge an appeal with a new appeals board on the basis that the buck stops with him?
I stand over my remarks about crosswords. I have no difficulty with staff working to rule and operating an overtime ban, but, because of the way "new work" was interpreted in district veterinary offices, in relation to TB and brucellosis, no work was done. No permits were issued, no envelopes were opened, no reactor cattle were destroyed and no samples were posted. This was not new work. As a consequence, hundreds of people in district veterinary offices, not the entire Department, literally had nothing to do.
Management in my Department visited those offices and found that people clearly had nothing to do. This was going on for some weeks.
Did the Minister see them doing crosswords?
It was a source of major frustration to me that this was the case. I appealed to them to lift their ban in relation to the disease eradication schemes. Management of the Department and myself showed great patience and perseverance on this issue. I am pleased the Department of Finance was able to accede to a special arrangement for the Department of Agriculture, Food and Forestry which facilitated a new approach. I hope all the issues concerning the CPSU, including the charter and the general restructuring issue, have been settled once and for all and that we will provide the type of service we would like.
Were all members of the CPSU doing crosswords? Is the Minister going to apologise to members of the CPSU?
I stand over what I said; I have nothing to apologise for.
Members will be aware that I negotiated a special concession last year in the case of 5,000 farmers who did not send in area aid forms. They had been denied their benefits, but I secured them. As regards errors by farmers, EU auditors come here to assess our premium payment structure. If they find we have paid people who should not have been paid, we will face a 2, 5 or 10 per cent disallowance, as we did in the beef storage and beef intervention sector in 1991-92. As the EU agent, we must administer this properly. I would rather a one than two year penalty in relation to hardship cases. I will put a case to Brussels about that in the simplification of CAP reform. At present the penalties are uniform and apply across the Community.
The Deputy also asked about disadvantaged areas. For the first time dissatisfied people — there will be many thousands making submissions to the appeals panel——
There are quite a few in County Wexford.
——will be given a detailed print out on why they were unsuccessful, that is, whether they exceeded the tillage criteria of 70.8 per cent, the income criteria or the stocking density. I do not administer this; the file was processed before I came to the Department. I pay tribute to Professor Sheehy and the appeals panel who did this independently and impartially. It will now be done transparently and it is not open to me to have a further review. Appeals were submitted in respect of some 3 million acres and one tenth, 225,000 acres, got in. Those which were unsuccessful were properly processed. Up to 75 per cent of the country is in. Europe made it clear at the commencement, when Senator O'Kennedy was Minister, that the fourth review was the final one.
A magnificent achievement by Fianna Fáil.
I hope the disgruntled people in County Wexford to whom Deputy Byrne referred will say it was a magnificent achievement by the Fianna Fáil Party.
I thank the Minister for announcing it.
It lay in Brussels for one year and nothing was done. The first thing I had to do was to tell Commissioners Flynn and Fischler to give some urgency to this. People who are dissatisfied will be given the reason and the detail of why their townland failed.
A number of farmers have experienced problems getting maps because of the strike. How long will they be given to submit them to the Department? They have already submitted their applications and have included notes stating they had problems getting maps. How long will they have to get those mapping problems solved? When does the Minister expect to make an announcement as regards the extremely severely handicapped areas?
An Leas-Ceann Comhairle
That is extraneous to the question before us.
The fact that we have only dealt with five questions in one hour and five minutes is not my fault.
It is an indication of the Minister's failure to do anything.
In fairness, his answers were very short.
I am pleased to inform the House that I announced the introduction of a third tier of extremely severely handicapped areas from 1 January 1997. I will submit shortly to the Commission criteria for approval, which I am confident of getting, for the inclusion of 1.4 million hectares with the top rate of compensation which will mean an extra income of £3 million per year to 15,000 farmers. I announced that today. The Deputy will be pleased to hear that because his constituency will be a significant beneficiary.
I am not happy the Minister left out west Cavan.
As regards the LPIS, this satellite imagery has obviously had teething problems. I am keeping the situation under intensive review. The CPSU dispute meant that these envelopes could not be opened in Hume House, but they are now being processed. It is a complex area and I would be happy to say how we will put it right on an Adjournment debate. The only way I could deal with the situation was to say that if people had their area aid form in by 15 May and the map problem was not resolved due to farmer error or Department error——
It was the error of the people the Minister employed.
A combination of the industrial action, the nature of the technology, wrong information provided by farmers and human error has meant that a considerable number of the A3 maps issued were wrong.
Some of them were blank.
We will show flexibility in the administration of the premia this year to the extent that if the area aid form is right, we will allow a period of months to get the maps right.
I am glad the Minister will give the Department time to get maps right. People sent in Land Registry maps, but wrong ones were sent back by the Department. The Minister should not say he is making a concession to farmers; it is a concession to the Department. Will a farmer who submitted an area aid form but did not get a receipt of postage before 30 April lose his headage payments, suckler cow over 12 units and extensification premia because the Department failed to issue a receipt as promised? Will the Minister confirm that is the case?
The Deputy is making a hypothetical case for people who have not sent in area aid forms. Irrespective of criticisms he may have of the new mapping procedure, whether it is a satellite imagery, a manual map or any dispute, the area aid form always had to be in by 30 April. Farmers who did not send in an area aid form got a once off concession last year. In excess of 135,000 have been received, so it seems people have learned that they must send in the area aid form. We should not confuse the issue because of problems with maps. There should be no problem with forms. I already answered the question about receipts. People will receive receipts within one month.