Dáil Éireann Debate, Tuesday - 27 November 2012
580. Deputy Éamon Ó Cuív asked the Minister for Agriculture, Food and the Marine the reason a single payment scheme net payment has been cut by €900 per annum since 2010 in respect of a person (details supplied); the reason the Department have cut his commonage area by c. 20 ha, have not stacked his entitlements; and if he will make a statement on the matter. [52589/12]
View answerUnder the provisions of the governing EU Regulations, payments under area-based schemes, including the Single Payment Scheme and the Disadvantaged Areas Scheme, may be made only in respect of eligible land. Applicants under these schemes are obliged annually to declare the land parcels available to them. Details of the eligible area of the land parcels are recorded on my Department's computer-based land parcel tracking system (Land Parcel Identification System). Details of use and area claimed for each of some one million parcels on the Land Parcel Identification System are monitored by my Department on an ongoing basis. In this context, a specific review was conducted by my Department of the reference areas for all commonages. I can confirm that this review, which is a complex exercise requiring verification of the level of premia payments made to an applicant during one or more of the years in the 2000 to 2002 SPS reference period, has recently been finalised in this case. Arising from this, I am glad to confirm that the Single Payment Entitlements of the person named have now been definitively recalculated. The additional payments due since 2010 will be paid as soon as possible.
