Vol. 548 No. 4
108 Mr. Durkan asked the Minister for Agriculture, Food and Rural Development the number of farm retirement pension applications received in his Department to date; the number which have been processed and approved; the number still outstanding; the likely time scale involved; and if he will make a statement on the matter. [5217/02]
A total of 10,450 applications were received under the 1994 scheme of early retirement from farming and 10,249 were approved for payment. Applications for this scheme closed on 31 December 1999.
A total of 957 applications have been received since the commencement of the early retirement scheme 2000 in November 2000. A total of 598 have been approved for payment and a further 297 are currently being processed. Nearly all of the remaining 62 applications have been found to be invalid for a variety of reasons at the date of application. Many of these faulty applications are rectifiable and have every chance of being accepted into the scheme if they are re-submitted in a correct form.
The protocol on direct payments to farmers sets a target of 12 weeks for the processing of a valid application to the stage of scheduling for payment if the case is selected for pre-payment inspection, and only ten weeks if it is not selected.
