Under the EU Regulations governing the agri-environmental schemes, comprehensive administrative checks, including cross-checks with the Land Parcel Identification System, as well as field inspections must be completed before payments can issue. Actual expenditure in any one year will depend on the completion of this process on an on-going basis and on the levels of queries and other issues arising on individual claims. In addition, the allocation of funding provided for the Department as a whole and for scheme payments is subject to the annual Estimates process. The funding provided in the Department’s Vote in 2012 is as follows
Scheme
|
2012 Vote allocation
|
REPS
|
€183.45m
|
AEOS
|
€58m
|