My Department, in the context of delivering the Single Farm Payment/Disadvantaged Areas Scheme, and other area based schemes, is required to carry out an annual round of inspections, both in the field and by means of Remote Sensing, to ensure the eligibility of land declared to drawdown payments. The basis of these inspections is governed by EU legislation and there are minimum numbers that must be conducted each year.
Land eligibility checks must be carried out on at least 5% of applicants. In response to concerns about the impact of on-the-ground inspections on farmers, 6,715 cases or some 85% of the required 2014 inspections are initially being carried out without the need for a farm visit as the information needed is acquired using the technique of remote sensing via satellite.
The EU Regulations governing Remote Sensing inspections also require that where it is not possible to make an accurate determination on the eligibility of a parcel or parcels of land by means of an assessment of the available satellite imagery, a field inspection must be undertaken to verify the eligibility of the land.
My Department continues, on a daily basis, to process applications to finalisation with the intention of issuing any payments due as soon as possible.
The following table details the data requested by the Deputy:
|
Scheme
|
-
|
No. Selected for Inspection
|
Total Paid to Date
|
Total Finalised & Payment to issue this week
|
|
|
Ground/Field Inspection
|
Remote Sensing Inspection
|
|
|
|
Single Payment Scheme
|
1,047
|
6,575
|
4,401
|
1,190
|
|
Disadvantaged Areas’ Scheme *
|
954
|
5,728
|
2,520
|
1,110
|
*Note – A total number 1,065 of the DAS cases not yet finalised have specific DAS related issues outstanding, e.g. failure to meet stocking density requirements, etc.
On the matter of digitisation, in the case of Remote Sensing inspections the completion of any required digitising work is an integral part of the processing of cases to finalisation. In the case of Ground/Field inspections, on completion of the field inspection the results are returned to my Department’s Portlaoise Office for processing, including digitising work, where required. Of the 988 cases returned to date, the digitising work has been completed on 558 cases. The remaining cases continue to be processed to finalisation on a daily basis.
