Vol. 552 No. 4
80 Mr. Penrose asked the Minister for Agriculture, Food and Rural Development the reason a person (details supplied) in County Westmeath is being threatened by his Department with a withdrawal of payment of her early retirement pension scheme when she has complied at all material times with the conditions of the scheme; if the payments will not be discontinued; and if he will make a statement on the matter. [12725/02]
The person named has been a participant in the scheme of early retirement from farming since 31 January 1995 and had leased the pension lands to her transferee. That lease had an expiry date of 30 December 1999, while her transferee acquired enlargement lands by a lease with an expiry date of 31 December 1999.
The person named extended the lease on the pension lands to 31 December 2001. Early in December 2001 she informed my Department that she proposed to transfer the pension lands to a different transferee after the lease had expired. While her proposal was being examined it was noted that there was no evidence that the existing transferee had renewed or extended the lease on the enlargement land after December 1999.
It is a requirement of the EU Council regulation governing the scheme in which the person named is a participant that the transferee must enlarge the pension lands and farm the enlarged holding. Payment of pension is conditional on this and other conditions being met. My Department wrote to her on 16 April 2002, requesting evidence that during the two years for which his lease of the pension lands was extended, the first transferee had also either renewed the lease on the enlargement land or found other enlargement land. She was asked to produce the necessary evidence within one month, and advised of the implications for the future payment of her pension if she were unable to do so.
