Seán Kyne
Question:636. Deputy Seán Kyne asked the Minister for Agriculture, Food and the Marine the professional code of conduct with which inspectors in his Department are obliged to comply and if he will furnish same. [8053/14]
View answerTuesday, 18 February 2014
Questions (636)
Written answers
My Department, in the context of delivering the Single Payment Scheme, Disadvantaged Areas’ Scheme and other area related schemes, is required to carry out an annual round of inspections covering both the eligibility of the land declared to draw down payments and also cross compliance aspects, to ensure adherence with EU regulatory requirements in the areas of public, animal and plant health, environment and animal welfare and ensuring that the farm is maintained in good agricultural and environmental condition. The basis for these inspections is governed by EU legislation, in particular, Council Regulation (EC) 73/2009 and Commission Regulation (EC) 1122/2009, and there are certain minimum numbers and types of inspections that must be conducted each year.
These inspections are a necessary requirement in order to draw down approximately €1.7 billion of EU funds annually and to avoid EU disallowances. The inspections are subject to repeated audits and my Department must therefore ensure that these inspections are conducted in a fair and equitable manner and in full accordance with the legislative provisions. These requirements, together with the need to ensure a fair and consistent approach, are achieved by ongoing inspector training, continuous oversight by supervisors and random verification inspections. Also when conducting inspections standardised inspection report forms and guidance documentation are provided to the inspecting officers, with the inspection outcome being recorded on the relevant schemes’ IT system. This comprehensive approach ensures that both the quality and consistency of inspections are maintained at extremely high levels.
While there is no specific professional code of conduct for officers undertaking these inspections, all staff within my Department, including inspecting officers, are required to adhere to a number of codes/standards, namely “The Civil Service Code of Standards and Behaviour”, the “Ethics in Public Office Act 1995” and the “Standards in Public Office Act 2001”.