Dáil Éireann debate -
Wednesday, 29 Sep 1999

Vol. 508 No. 1

Written Answers. - Rural Environment Protection Scheme.

John Bruton

Question:

304 Mr. J. Bruton asked the Minister for Agriculture and Food the number of officials in his Department who are authorised to process and sanction REP scheme payments; the recommended time to process an application; the average time taken to process an application; the proposals, if any, he has to improve the processing of claims; and if he will make a statement on the matter. [18559/99]

Minister for Agriculture and Food (Mr. Walsh):

Applications under REPS are submitted to the Department's local farm development service, FDS, office and if everything is in order following an office check the FDS district superintendent recommends payment following which 50 per cent of the first year payment is made up front to the applicant. Five per cent of applications are subjected to a detailed prepayment check including on-farm inspection. For second and subsequent years applicants are issued with an application form for payment. Payment is processed following the receipt of this application from the participant. However, 55 per cent of participants are subject to an on-farm check prior to the issue of second or subsequent payments.

The target time to process a REPS applicant for payment, as set out in the Department's Customer Service Action Plan 1998-2000 is two months. The average time to process an application for first payment is less than four weeks; the processing of the 5 per cent selected for a prepayment check, naturally, takes longer. Following the receipt of applications from participants for second and subsequent payments 45 per cent are recommended for payment by the district superintendent generally within a few weeks. The remaining 55 per cent are subjected to on-farm checks which are taking an average eight weeks to do prior to going for payment.

In the case of non-compliant participants there are, of course, further delays in processing.

It should be acknowledged that the workload on REPS has increased significantly since its introduction in 1994, summarised as follows:

Year	Participants(cumulative)
1994	527
1995	10,435
1996	22,937
1997	31,314
1998	39,543
1999	42,690

Controls and inspection checks for the scheme are carried out by the Department's rural development and environment group. The staffing of this group is as follows:

Grade	Number
Senior Inspector	1
Agricultural Inspector	10
Rural Development andEnvironment (RDE) Inspectors	39
Area Superintendent	7
District Superintendent	38
Supervisory Agricultural Officer	33
Technical Agricultural Officer	157

In addition 92 clerical and administrative staff are engaged in the operation of the REP scheme, making a total of 377.

In operating the scheme, my Department has to have regard to the legitimate expectations of applicants for a prompt and efficient service, while at the same time bearing in mind the need to maintain appropriate standards of monitoring and control. The success of the scheme, with its annual increasing workload, is putting pressure on the human resources assigned to it and this issue is undergoing review.