Vol. 567 No. 3
13 Mr. Coveney asked the Minister for Agriculture and Food the reason, on entry into the milk partnership scheme, one of the participants has to give up his herd number in view of the fact that this prohibits him from getting a REP scheme payment; if, in such a situation, REP scheme payments that have been made have to be returned; his plans to change this; and if he will make a statement on the matter. [14030/03]
For the purposes of the rural environmental protection scheme, a "farmer" is defined as "an individual agricultural producer, whether a natural or legal person or a group of natural or legal persons, whatever legal status is granted the group and its members by national law, whose holding is within the State". The legal framework for the establishment of milk production partnerships is set out in Statutory Instrument No. 97 of 2002 and confers legal status on such partnerships. Accordingly a milk production partnership is a "farmer" for the purposes of REPS.
It is a condition of REPS that a farmer must declare all the land farmed in the agri-environmental plan for the holding. Currently, therefore, only one REPS application may be made by a partnership and all the land farmed by the partnership must be included in the farm plan. The possession of herd numbers is not the deciding factor in determining eligibility for REPS.
Where farmers enter into a milk partnership and where one or both are already REPS participants, my Department is obliged to look for a refund of the REPS payments unless a new REPS agreement for the entire area farmed under the partnership is entered into.
