Dáil Éireann Debate, Thursday - 9 December 2021
48. Deputy Sean Sherlock asked the Minister for Agriculture, Food and the Marine if he will report on the uptake of the BEAM scheme; if the scheme has been the subject of a review; and the amount that has been returned of the overall fund allocated to the scheme to the Exchequer as a result of unsuccessful appeals under the scheme. [60838/21]
View answerThe Beef Exceptional Aid Measure (BEAM) provided temporary exceptional adjustment aid to farmers in the beef sector in Ireland, subject to the conditions set out in EU Commission Implementing Regulation (EU) 2019/1132. BEAM was funded by a combination of €50 million EU aid and Exchequer support.
It was provided to support Irish beef farmers who saw beef prices fall in light of market disturbance. Just over 33,000 applicants received some €77.86 million under the scheme with 64% of each payment coming from EU funds and the remaining 36% from Exchequer funds.
One of the conditions under which the €50 million was granted by the European Commission was that there had to be an element of reduction or re-structuring built into the scheme. This was set out clearly within Article 1 (3) of Commission Implementing Regulation (EU) 2019 / 1132 of 2 July 2019. In that context, BEAM participants agreed to reduce the production of bovine livestock manure nitrogen on their holding by 5% for the reduction period 1st July 2020 to 30th June 2021 as compared to the reference period 1st July 2018 to 30 June 2019.
I secured flexibility around the deadline for meeting the 5% reduction after I engaged with the European Commission. Accordingly I introduced an option to allow participants choose an alternative reduction period of 1st January 2021 to 31th December 2021 over which a BEAM participant could meet their 5% reduction requirement. This was done to give BEAM participants every chance of meeting their requirements under the scheme. This option remained open until 21st June 2021 with more than 16,000 applying for the later reduction period..
When the original reduction period ended on 30th June 2021, it was identified that approximately 5,300 of those approximately 16,000 BEAM participants who had opted to defer had in fact met all their BEAM commitments including the 5% bovine nitrates reduction. The Department therefore removed them from the later reduction period. Almost 19,000 BEAM participants did meet the commitments they entered into under section 7 of the terms and conditions and thus exited the scheme successfully in August 2021.
A further 3,627 participants who had not opted to defer did not meet some or all the commitments they entered into under section 7 of the Terms and Conditions of the scheme and thus faced either a partial or full recoupment of monies received under the scheme.
The total value of these recoupments was €5.27 million with €3.37 million to be returned to the EU and €1.9 million to be returned to the Exchequer in line with the ratio of 64% to 36% under which they were initially paid.
These 3,627 BEAM participants were given the right to appeal. This left approximately 10,500 BEAM participants who opted to defer and who had not met the 5% bovine nitrates reduction requirement and thus are now within the alternative reduction period of 1st January 2021 to 31st December 2021.
These participants continue to receive a monthly letter from my Department (as all participants have done since February 2021) outlining the amount of nitrates they have already used (accumulated), the amount of nitrates they have left if they are to meet their 5% reduction and a projection based on the livestock numbers on their holding of their final nitrates position at the end of the reduction period.
The final review of the scheme will be in February 2022 when compliance and administrative checks on those BEAM participants who opted to defer will be conducted. Separately the Scheme was the subject of a European Commission audit in November 2020. The scheme is also subject to audit by my Department’s own internal auditors and external audit by the Certification Body for my Department.
