Dáil Éireann Debate, Thursday - 16 July 2015
323. Deputy Denis Naughten asked the Minister for Agriculture, Food and the Marine if his Department or agencies under the authority of his Department have performed an assessment of the potential savings to be accrued if current paper-based application processes by members of the public were replaced with a fully online application system; and if he will make a statement on the matter. [30133/15]
View answerMy Department makes extensive use of ICT to underpin all the functional areas of DAFM – both back-office and online. My Department is heavily committed to the rollout of online systems both as a means of reducing internal costs and simplifying the application process for its customers and since Q4 2014, my Department has adopted the policy of providing for the application for all schemes online, except in a very small number of cases where the anticipated number of applications is so small as to make it uneconomical to develop and test the required functionality.
While no formal calculation of the savings has been undertaken, online application functionality provides benefits to both the Department and to its customers:
- It simplifies the applications process for the customer and gives instant acknowledgement of receipt of an applications
- It considerably reduces the amount of errors made and therefore increases the likelihood that the customer will get payments at the earliest opportunity.
- Information provided during the online process (such as spatial information) helps the customers choose the best options under a scheme
- It reduces or eliminates the work involved by DAFM staff in data capturing paper applications.
- The reduced error rate leads to a decrease in resources required to follow up on errors.
- It increases overall efficiency within the Department as all data is captured and stored in a central database.
Since November 2014, my Department has rolled out the online facilities for the following schemes:
- Basic Payments Scheme – Greening
- Basic Payments Scheme – 2015 Application
- Basic Payments Scheme – Trading
- Basic Payments Scheme – National reserve
- Basic Payments Scheme – Young farmer
- Basic Payments Scheme – Review of entitlements request
- GLAS – Green Low Carbon Agri-Environment Scheme – 2015 Application
- Organic Farmer Scheme
- Beef Genomics and Data Programme
- Six (6) Knowledge Transfer Schemes
- TAMS – Young Farmers Investment Scheme
- TAMS - Dairy Equipment Scheme
In addition, my Department will be rolling out an additional 4 TAMS schemes by the end of July.
My Department has been very proactive in the provision of online services to its customers (for example the number of online applications for single farm payment made online has increased from 30% in 2010 to 70% in 2015) and will continue to seek to improve the level of service provided when the opportunity arises. My Department seeks to increase the level of uptake in online applications by way of press releases, advertisement campaigns and by sending text messages advising of availability and advantages of online applications.
