Vol. 559 No. 1
426 Mr. Ring asked the Minister for the Environment and Local Government the Ministers and Ministers of State from his Department involved in Dúchas negotiations with the European Commission on framework plans since the negotiations started in 1997 to date; and the details on a stage-by-stage basis. [25834/02]
From 1998, the Department of Agriculture and Food and Dúchas, the Heritage Service, now part of my Department, have been jointly involved in the preparation of commonage framework plans and negotiations thereon.
In 1998 it was agreed, in consultation with the EU Commission, that immediate action had to be taken to deal with overgrazing on commonages. A programme of work commenced to prepare framework plans prescribing stocking levels for every commonage in the country. An interim framework plan, with a compulsory requirement of 30% destocking on commonages in six western counties, was introduced at the end of 1998. As the Deputy will be aware the interim framework plan is now being replaced by the stocking level requirements of individual commonage framework plans.
A scheme of compensation payments for losses arising from the designation of Natura 2000 sites was submitted to the EU Commission in October 1999, for approval as a state aid. This scheme included an element of compensation for destocking under the commonage framework plans. Since then my Department has had discussions and correspondence with the EU Commission. The most recent queries from the Commission were received in June 2002 and replies to these queries issued in July 2002. Approval to the scheme is still awaited.
