Jim Higgins
Ceist:155 Mr. J. Higgins asked the Minister for Agriculture, Food and Forestry the number of 1993 area aid forms which were wrongly completed or in respect of which further queries had to be made by his Department.
Written Answers. - Area Aid Applications.
Approximately 42,000 or almost 30 per cent of 1993 area aid applications contained errors which had to be queried. Indeed, it is my Department's experience that incorrect and incomplete application forms lead to considerable delays in payments under the various headage and premia schemes. In the case of the 1993 special beef premium scheme, for example, a recent analysis showed that up to 40,000 applicants or almost 50 per cent of all applicants had been written to by my Department concerning problems with their applications. Up to 20,000 reminder letters have issued and in some cases farmers have been written to as many as six times in connection with problems including failure to submit cattle identity cards, failure to supply date of birth and submission of incorrect or invalid tag numbers.