EU Regulations governing the administration of the Single Farm Payment/Disadvantaged Areas Schemes, and other area based schemes, require that full and comprehensive administrative eligibility checks, including in some cases either Ground or Remote Sensing (satellite) inspections, be completed before any payments issue. Eligibility checks are required to ensure that the actual area claimed in the application form corresponds to the area farmed by the applicant, that there are no dual claims of land and that ineligible land or features are not included for aid purposes. Both the administrative and inspections checks ensure that the Land Parcel Identification System, underpinning the direct aid payments worth in excess of €1.5 bn annually, is accurately maintained. In addition, these checks are required to protect the annual drawdown of the EU funds and to avoid disallowances.
My Department 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, 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.
In relation to Remote Sensing inspections, the EU regulations 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, including those subject to inspection, with the intention of issuing any outstanding payments due as soon as possible.
To date advance payments amounting to €531.7m have issued to 111,805 applicants under the 2014 Single Farm Payment, with €175.5m having issued to 83,226 applicants under the Disadvantaged Areas Scheme.
