Dáil Éireann Debate, Tuesday - 24 February 2004
219 Mr. Cregan asked the Minister for Agriculture and Food if he will examine his Department’s demand for repayment of an alleged overpayment made in respect of a person (details supplied) in County Limerick in receipt of the scheme for early retirement from farming, whose spouse was in receipt of a contributory old age pension from the Department of Social and Family Affairs. [5755/04]
View answerThe 1994 scheme of early retirement from farming and its successor introduced in November 2000 are both governed by EU Council regulations. It is a requirement of these regulations that the early retirement pension may only be paid as a supplement to any national retirement pension payable. This means that any national retirement pension payable to a participant in the scheme must be deducted from his or her early retirement pension. This condition also applies to participants' partners in a joint management application. The overpayment for the person named arose from the concurrent payment of her husband's old age contributory pension and the full amount of early retirement pension. My Department is obliged to recover all overpayments under the scheme, as failure to do so would jeopardise its obligations with regard to EU funds. However, my Department will consider sympathetically any proposals the person named may wish to make to repay the full amount over a period of time.
