Every REPS participant must undertake to farm to the scheme conditions and agri-environmental specifications for a period of five years as a condition of eligibility for payment.
The governing EU regulation provides that when, during the period of an undertaking, all or part of the holding is transferred to another person, the latter may take on the undertaking for the remainder of the period. Where such continuation of the undertaking does not take place aid paid on the land transferred must be reimbursed. The regulation also provides that member states may choose not to require reimbursement where there is a definitive cessation of farming by a beneficiary who has already completed three years of the undertaking and it is not feasible for a successor to continue the undertaking. In all cases, a transferee may opt to continue the REPS plan of the transferor. Such an undertaking by the transferee would dispense with the reimbursement requirement.
In January 2001 the REPS participant concerned transferred her land. She applied for the early retirement scheme on 30 May and her application was approved in August. While payment of the early retirement pension to the person named did not begin until August, she had transferred title to her lands by lease in January and could not therefore claim to have been in control of them thereafter. As the participant concerned had not completed three years of the scheme and the transferee did not elect to continue to farm the land under REPS, my Department has no option but to recoup all moneys she received under the REP scheme in accordance with the governing EU regulation.
