In general, farmers who submit applications under the Direct Payment Scheme and many other measures and who are not satisfied with a decision made by my Department in the processing of the application can appeal to the Agricultural Appeals Office. In some instances where the volume of appeals submitted is extremely high, it is necessary to provide for an alternative appeals mechanism to process these in an efficient manner. This was the case in respect of appeals submitted under the 2013 LPIS Review. I, therefore, established the Independent LPIS Appeals Committee to deal with such appeals. This Committee comprises of an independent Chairman and Appeals Offices from the Agriculture Appeals Office . The Schedule to the Agriculture Appeals Act, 2001 was amended by the Agriculture Appeals Act 2001 (Amendment of Schedule) Regulations 2013 (SI No. 10 of 2013) to exclude the Land Parcel Identification System Review 2013 (LPIS Review 2013) cases. Where persons were dissatisfied with a decision affecting them under the 2013 Review of Eligibility of Land parcels, they were entitled in the first instance, to have the decision reviewed by the Department of Agriculture, Food and the Marine. However, if applicants were not satisfied with the outcome of the review, they could appeal that decision to the LPIS Appeals Committee. If they continued to be dissatisfied after the Appeals Committee had reviewed their case, they can refer the matter to the Office of the Ombudsman.
The Terms of Reference of the Appeals Committee is available on the website of the Agriculture Appeals Office. Each appeal case is decided on its own individual merits and an individual recommendation issues from the Committee to my Department of Agriculture, Food and the Marine. There are no plans to publish individual recommendations but, however, overall statistics will be included in the Agriculture Appeals Office Annual Report, which will be published later this year.
