Vol. 442 No. 5
49 Mr. Cox asked the Minister for Agriculture, Food and Forestry the number of area aid applications received by his Department before the deadline of 29 April 1994; and if he has any estimate of the number of farmers who failed to submit applications.
75 Mr. Creed asked the Minister for Agriculture, Food and Forestry the number of 1993 simplified area aid application files that have been processed by his Department to date; and when the processing of all files will be completed.
I propose to take Questions Nos. 49 and 75 together.
In 1993 some 150,000 area aid applications were submitted to my Department and, of these, close to 133,000 were of the simplified type. To date my Department has processed fully some 129,500 of the simplified applications and only a relatively small number of problem cases remain to be processed at this stage.
I do not have details of the number of area aid applications received in my Department by the closing date of 29 April. I am sure it will be appreciated that the handling of up to 150,000 area aid applications with accompanying maps is an onerous task and it will be some time yet before my Department will have an accurate assessment of the situation.
