Vol. 477 No. 5
319 Mr. Creed asked the Minister for Agriculture, Food and Forestry the reason for the delay in digitising area aid applications; and if his attention has been drawn to the fact that this process is holding up grant payments. [9845/97]
The land parcel identification system (LPIS) involves digitising of all land parcels on maps submitted by farmers and its purpose is to provide my Department with a database whereby land parcels being claimed for area aid purposes can be located, identified, and have area values and land use attributed. Furthermore, the system ensures that parcels of land are not overclaimed by farmers or that the same parcel is not claimed by more than one farmer in any given year. In a minority of cases certain problems have arisen under this system in identifying all of the land parcels being claimed. In some cases there are apparent overlaps between parcels being claimed by two or more farmers and in other cases the area aid application form was not fully completed which led to difficulties in validating parcels being claimed against maps supplied. These difficulties did not delay the making of advance payments in respect of 1996 schemes but are delaying the making of balancing payments to certain farmers.
