Vol. 477 No. 7
146 Mr. Collins asked the Minister for Agriculture, Food and Forestry the reason for the delay in payment of headage and suckler grants for 1995 and 1996 to a person (details supplied) in County Cork; and when these will be paid. [10226/97]
Article 2.2 of Commission Regulation (EEC) No. 3887/92 states that "Member States shall take the measures necessary to avoid that the conversion of existing holdings or the creation of holdings after 30 June 1992 leads to the patently improper avoidance of the provisions relating to the individual limits on eligibility for premiums...".
147 Mr. Collins asked the Minister for Agriculture, Food and Forestry the reason for the delay in payment of headage and suckler grants for 1995 and 1996 to a person (details supplied) in County Cork; and when these will be paid. [10227/97]
The person named was paid his full 1995 cattle headage grants of £3,360.00 on 30 September 1995, his 1995 suckler cow premium scheme advance of £3,362.82 on 1 November 1995 and his balance of £2,241.88 on 22 January 1996. He will be paid his 1996 cattle headage scheme grants within a week.
He applied for 1996 suckler cow premium scheme grants on 45 cows, one of which was found, at inspection, to be a dairy type cow, while declared on his application as a beef breed. This matter is being examined by field staff at present and if found to be in order payment will be made, otherwise the person named will be informed of the position.
148 Mr. Ring asked the Minister for Agriculture, Food and Forestry the reason a person (details supplied) in County Mayo has not been paid his first REP scheme instalment in view of the fact that this delay is causing financial hardship; and the reason his neighbour has already been paid the second instalment in view of the fact that they both applied at the same time and have similar amounts of leased commonage. [10228/97]
Over a year and a half ago my Department received a significant number of REP applications which included high proportions of leased commonage lands. Indeed, a number of applications were submitted in respect of lands which were entirely leased commonage. In such circumstances the Deputy will appreciate that, in order to safeguard the financial interests of the EU and of the Irish Exchequer, my Department had to ensure that these applications were genuine and complied with the terms of the relevant regulations. Consideration of the eligibility of such applications necessarily involves consultations with the Attorney General's Office and the European Commission. Processing the application of the first named person has been held up pending the outcome of this consultation.
I can assure the Deputy that every effort is being made to arrive at a fair and equitable solution in these cases commensurate with the Department's responsibility to ensure the highest standards of accountability for all such expenditure.
As the Deputy is aware, the purpose of REPS is to compensate farmers for the genuine costs of engaging in environmentally friendly farming.
149 Mr. J. Walsh asked the Minister for Agriculture, Food and Forestry the steps, if any, he has taken to ensure that the problems and payment delays associated with area aid applications in 1996 will not be repeated in 1997. [10264/97]
As part of the reform of the common agricultural policy in 1992, the Department of Agriculture, Food and Forestry is obliged under Council Regulation (EEC) No 3508/92 to establish an integrated administration and control system. A specific requirement of the system is the development of an alpha-numeric land parcel identification system for all land parcels which are the subject of an area aid application. The original deadline for implementation of the system in member states was 1 January 1996 but this was extended by the EU to 1 January 1997. As the Deputy will appreciate, implementation of the LPIS was an extremely large project involving over 130,000 farmers who between them submitted some 500,000 maps comprising some 750,000 land parcels. Given the size of the project and the short time frame within which to complete it, it was not surprising that some problems arose with its introduction last year.
However, considerable effort has been devoted to addressing the problems which arose in the 1996 area aid applications. Amendments identified on the 1996 area aid applications have been taken into account in updating the system for 1997.
Pre-printed 1997 area aid applications have now been distributed to farmers. Maps have also issued to the overwhelming majority of applicants. My Department has written to those farmers who, because of outstanding problems, will not receive maps. These farmers have been asked to identify the townlands in which their land is located and my Department will send them maps on which they can identify their land.
As a further improvement on last year, the 1997 maps are printed against a photographic background and are centred on individual farms rather than on townland as was the case in 1996.
While the LPIS, as with any mapping system, will be subject to on-going amendment and improvement, I am satisfied that the additional development of the LPIS over the past year will eliminate the majority of the problems experienced by farmers when it was first introduced.
