Dáil Éireann Debate, Tuesday - 8 April 2014
483. Deputy Michael McNamara asked the Minister for Agriculture, Food and the Marine the reason for the delay in paying the Burren life scheme which was due to be paid out in mid March following a visit from officials of his Department on 3 March 2014 to a person (details supplied) in County Clare; and if he will make a statement on the matter. [16078/14]
View answerMy Department has commenced payments for actions undertaken by farmers participating in the 2013 Burren Farming for Conservation Programme (BFCP). The legal deadline, under the governing EU Regulations for making these payments is the end of June 2014. Since actions undertaken by the BFCP participants continued throughout the entire year 2013, it was not possible to carry out the required eligibility inspections, which must be carried out prior to payment, until 2014. The EU Regulations also provide that all of the eligibility inspections must be completed before payments can commence, this is now the case and payments have started to issue.
The payments for 2013 totalling €986,000, support high environmental value farming in the Burren, which is one of Ireland’s outstanding landscapes and is known worldwide. These payments will bring the allocation to participating famers by my Department over the four years of the Programme to over €3.8 million. Payments under this measure will remain in place in respect of the 2014 scheme-year.
