Vol. 501 No. 1
76 Mr. G. Reynolds asked the Minister for Agriculture and Food if his attention has been drawn to the great difficulty landowners have trying to distinguish their plots of land for area aid on photocopied aerial maps being sent to landowners by his Department due to the fact that the original maps sent by the landowners were mislaid by his Department; and if he will make a statement on the matter. [4770/99]
In 1998 the area aid unit of my Department processed in excess of 132,500 new applications after having cleared a backlog of almost 20,000 cases from 1997. The volume of maps processed by the unit was very high in 1998, with up to 200,000 maps being issued to some 85,000 farmer applicants. In regard to the maps issued to farmers, these are all printed from the area aid units graphic database. This database was created from Ordnance Survey maps supplied by farmers and validated against ortho photographs derived from an aerial survey of the country carried out in 1995. The advantage to farmers of issuing ortho photograph maps is that these identify up to date land boundaries whereas, in many cases, Ordnance Survey maps are significantly out of date.
Initially, maps were issued to all farmers who had submitted claims in 1997 which had required map alterations such as boundary changes, the addition or removal of parcels or other digitising amendments. This was a task of considerable proportions involving the issuing of 139,827 maps to 58,731 herdowners. These maps outlined the farmers digitised land parcels and the unique numbers assigned to those parcels. The gross area of each land parcel was also contained on the map collar.
Additionally, as errors in the 1998 applications were identified during processing, it was necessary to issue more maps. These were issued to farmers on an ongoing basis throughout the year for the purpose of resolving individual cases. In this way applicants with problems were afforded every opportunity to correct boundaries which they had inaccurately drawn and to resolve entitlements where the issue of duplicate and overlapping claims had arisen.
This involved the issue of an additional 60,000 maps to some 25,000 herdowners. Indeed, some 3,000 of these cases still remain to be resolved and no payments can issue until the people concerned respond to queries from the area aid unit.
Having regard to the large volume of maps issued, and taking into account that 98 per cent of all area aid applications have been cleared and paid, it is evident that the details contained on the maps issued did not present any serious difficulty to the vast majority of area aid applicants.
