Dáil Éireann Debate, Wednesday - 8 February 2012
174 Deputy Michael Moynihan asked the Minister for Agriculture, Food and the Marine the number of farmers who were inspected under the single farm payment in 2011; and of that number, the number of them that are still awaiting their single farm payment. [7211/12]
View answerIn the context of delivering the Single Payment Scheme, my Department is required to carry out inspections on a number of farms covering land eligibility and cross-compliance.
A minimum of 5% of Single Payment Scheme applicants are required to be inspected under the eligibility rule. These checks are carried out to verify that the actual area claimed in the Single Payment Scheme application form corresponds to the area held by the farmer and to ensure there are no overlapping or duplicate claims. Up to two-thirds of these inspections are carried out without a farm visit and using the technique of "remote sensing".
The rate of on-farm inspection required for cross-compliance is 1% of those farmers to whom the Statutory Management Requirements and Good Agricultural and Environmental Condition (GAEC) apply. Under the relevant regulations 3% of producers must be inspected under the Bovine Animal Identification and Registration requirements together with 3% of sheep/goat producers covering 5% of the National flock.
It is a regulatory requirement that eligibility inspections must be finalised before any payments can issue in a given year. On the other hand, Cross Compliance inspections take place throughout the calendar year and can be carried out after the payment has been made. Insofar as possible the Department tries to integrate some of the eligibility and cross-compliance inspections. Some 11,900 farmers were inspected under the 2011 Single Payment Scheme. While all eligibility inspections were carried out before payments commenced a total of 75 farmers who were subject to inspection are still awaiting payment.
The main reason for the delay in payment is the need to have digitising amendments made to the maps in order that the Land Parcel Identification System that is used for making payments to farmers is kept up-to-date. Over 90% of cases that were subject to land eligibility inspections in 2011 had to have their maps re-digitised.
All outstanding cases are being processed and it is anticipated the payment will issue in these cases shortly.
