Dáil Éireann Debate, Tuesday - 14 May 2013
543. Deputy Éamon Ó Cuív asked the Minister for Agriculture, Food and the Marine when REP scheme 4 payments will be made to farmers who have had their payments cleared for payment by his Department; the reason for the delay in issuing payments; and if he will make a statement on the matter. [22547/13]
View answerUnder the EU Regulations governing all area-based payment schemes, a comprehensive administrative check of all applications, including cross-checks with the Land Parcel Identification System, must be completed before any REPS payment can issue.
Successive EU audits have made it absolutely clear that compliance with the Regulations must be strictly adhered to and that all administrative checks must be passed and eligibility conditions met before payment issues. As a result, my Department is obliged to ensure that individual payments will not issue until all aspects of a farmer’s application are in order, all outstanding documentation provided and all queries resolved. In most instances where payments are outstanding there remains an outstanding query on the application. These queries are being resolved on an ongoing basis and officials in my Department will have contacted the applicants concerned with the intention of issuing payment as quickly as possible. I am, of course, conscious of the difficulties facing the farming community at present and I am prioritising the processing of outstanding payments, including REPS, and to ensure that queries are resolved and payments expedited.
To date approximately 29,200 of the remaining 30,200 REPS 4 participants have been paid a total of €167m in respect of the 2012 application period. An additional €1m will issue this week to a further 200 REPS 4 farmers.
