Vol. 496 No. 5
29 Mr. Ring asked the Minister for Agriculture and Food the number of area aid applications not processed to date; the number of applicants the section has written to regarding queries on their applications; if he will consider the allocation of additional staff to the area aid unit in the light of these statistics; and if he will make a statement on the matter. [23238/98]
Some 132,000 area aid applications were received in 1998. Of these, 88 per cent have been processed for payment including over 93 per cent of arable applications.
To date, the area aid unit has issued in the region of 18,000 letters to applicants. Applicants have also been contacted by telephone in a number of cases. This process is now being completed. Significant numbers of applications continue to be cleared on a daily basis in the area aid unit. Applicants who have been contacted by the unit are urged to respond in writing without delay so that these cases can be cleared for payment as soon as possible. This will facilitate the earliest processing of outstanding cases. In the light of this level of clearance, and the complexities involved in processing applications in the context of the land parcel identification system, there would be no gain in allocating additional untrained staff to the area aid unit.
