Vol. 436 No. 5
149 Mr. Crawford asked the Minister for Agriculture, Food and Forestry the amount of bank guarantees being held by his Department from meat plants in respect of export refunds; the ageing, by year, of these guarantee amounts; the measures, if any, that are being implemented to accelerate the release of these guarantees; and if he will make a statement on the matter.
The amount of bank guarantees being held by my Department in respect of advance payments of export refunds in the beef sector is £280 million. Almost 70 per cent of this amount refers to exports made within the last year i.e. current export business. Some guarantees are outstanding for several years because of individual complications arising in particular cases. A special task force of staff has been recently assigned to deal exclusively with the processing of the relevant files.
150 Mr. Penrose asked the Minister for Agriculture, Food and Forestry when a person (details supplied) in County Westmeath will be notified of his sheep quota allocation as he is urgently awaiting this notification.
The relevant EC Regulations provide for Ewe Premium quotas to be based on the number of ewes on which a producer was paid the premium in 1991 provided that the producer also applied for the premium in 1992.
The person named is not entitled to a quota because he did not apply for the premium under the 1991 Ewe Premium Scheme.
He has submitted an application for reserve quota from the National Reserve which has been established for allocation to certain categories of producers. His application is being processed at present.
He will be informed of the outcome in three to four weeks.
