Vol. 487 No. 7
216 Mr. Connaughton asked the Minister for Agriculture and Food the number of farmers who have a problem with area aid maps as of 1 February 1998; the number of files which have yet to be processed by his Department; and if all files will be processed before the 1998 application date is announced. [5111/98]
The number of farmers who have problems with their area aid maps at present is of the order of 15,000 and this number of files remains to be processed. I might say that under the terms of a rescheduling arrangement which I came to with the European Commission, these 15,000 farmers were paid their premium advances and their disadvantaged area grants.
My Department is querying and forwarding any maps they need to these farmers to help them answer those queries. I expect that only a very small percentage of cases will not be fully resolved before the 1998 pre-printed applications are issued. It is my Department's intention to prioritise this small percentage of cases early in the proesssing of the 1998 area aid applications received from farmers.
