Vol. 556 No. 5
118 Mr. Ring asked the Minister for Agriculture and Food the reason the area aid application by a person (details supplied) in County Mayo was cleared for payment three weeks ago but the person has not received area based payments for 2002; and the reason for the present delay. [21014/02]
The person named will be paid his full entitlement under the 2002 area-based compensatory allowance scheme shortly.
119 Mr. Deenihan asked the Minister for Agriculture and Food the reason a suckler cow quota was not approved for a person (details supplied) in County Kerry; and if he will make a statement on the matter. [21015/02]
The position with regard to the 2003 National Reserve was that only some 1,500 suckler cow premium rights were available for distribution. Since demand for reserve quota exceeded that figure, there were not enough rights available to satisfy all applicants. Consequently, quota had to be distributed in accordance with the priorities laid down by the Quota Review Group and EU regulations as follows: 5% of the reserve had to be reserved for category B applicants, farmers with holdings on offshore islands; and 10% of the reserve had to be reserved for category C applicants, organic farmers. The remaining quota was distributed to qualifying applicants under category A – first-time applicants under 35 years of age – who, under EU rules, had to be given priority. As a result there was no quota left to allocate to any applicant under category D, i.e. farmers who required additional quota to ensure viability of their holding. Since the person named applied for an allocation of quota under category D, it was therefore not possible to allocate quota to him from the 2003 National Reserve.
120 Mr. Killeen asked the Minister for Agriculture and Food the arrangements which have been made to ensure early payment to farmers whose premiums have been delayed due to administrative difficulties associated with his Department's system of farm audit; and if he will make a statement on the matter. [21016/02]
Inspections in respect of the bovine livestock premium schemes are being conducted for 2002 on a producer rather than on a scheme basis. Instead of selecting a certain percentage of applications under each scheme for inspection as in previous years, my Department is now selecting a certain percentage of producers for inspection and is carrying out inspections on all applications for livestock premiums lodged by those producers at the date of inspection. Up to the beginning of 2002, EU regulations required that a minimum of 10% of all applications for the bovine premium schemes be checked on the spot but since then the requirement has been that a minimum of 5% of applications are subjected to on-the-spot checks. This change in the regulations will result in a decrease of more than 50% in the number of farms that are the subject of an on-the-spot check in a year. EU regulations also require that any cases that are selected for on-farm inspections are not paid either advances or full payments until the inspections are carried out and the applications have been found in order.
