Dáil Éireann díospóireacht -
Tuesday, 23 Jun 1992

Vol. 421 No. 4

Written Answers. - Disadvantaged Areas Extension.

Gerard Collins

Ceist:

286 Mr. Collins asked the Minister for Agriculture and Food if he will provide a report on the activities to date of the special appeal board established by his Department for the purpose of reviewing the disadvantaged areas extension; and when it is expected that submissions arising from their deliberations will be presented to Brussels for their consideration.

Minister for Agriculture and Food (Mr. Walsh)

The Disadvantaged Areas Appeal Panel received over 1,500 appeal applications from groups of farmers in 15 counties in Leinster and Munster who were not included in the extension of the disadvantaged areas. The area under appeal is estimated at 3 million acres comprising 40,000 individual farms and covering 10,000 townlands.

A 100 per cent survey of farms was carried out by the Department at the behast of the panel early this year. The task of processing the very large amount of data on computer is under away and is expected to be completed by the end of July. At that stage the panel will commence its analysis of the results and make recommendations to me as to the areas to be included in a submission to the EC Commission.

Because of the complexity of the task it is not easy to predict how long the analysis will take. However, I would like to assure the Deputy that both the panel and the Department are anxious to complete the job as soon as possible.

In addition to extension appeals, the panel invited applications from farming groups who were not included in the recent reclassification. Almost 700 applications have been received comprising over 2 million acres in 19 counties. The panel is currently considering the most suitable method of processing these applications.