Vol. 536 No. 3
87 Mr. Higgins (Mayo) asked the Minister for Agriculture, Food and Rural Development if he will dispense with random inspection for REP scheme applicants in view of the fact that officials are refusing to carry out inspections until such time as the foot and mouth crisis eases; and if he will make a statement on the matter. [13931/01]
Applications for second-year or subsequent annual REPS payments are processed in accordance with my Department's commitments under the protocol on direct payments to farmers. Compliance inspections are no longer related to these applications and consequently the annual payments were not affected by the foot and mouth crisis.
A proportion of new applications for REPS are subject to pre-payment inspection, however. This involves a farm check. My Department was obviously very much aware of the difficulties the foot and mouth restrictions placed on the farming community. However, this had to be balanced against the controls needed to maintain the integrity of the scheme and protect my Department's accreditation as a paying agency. My Department had made proposals to the EU Commission, and special measures were approved by the Commission in a regulation published on 3 May applying to all member states affected by foot and mouth disease. Relaxation or removal of controls would not have been possible without such prior EU approval.
In the event, I am happy to say that thanks to the national effort to contain the disease my Department is now in a position to carry out on-farm visits again. I understand that some delays in payments may occur in a small number of cases, but with the resumption of on-farm visits these are now being dealt with as a high priority and payments will be made as soon as possible.
