Dáil Éireann díospóireacht -
Wednesday, 29 Sep 1999

Vol. 508 No. 1

Adjournment Debate. - Agricultural Schemes.

Mr. Farrelly:

I thank you for the opportunity to raise this important issue of REPS inspections and the inspection of retirement applications. The Minister and his Department should be aware of the serious problem in the office in Navan, due to staff shortages, for a very long time. I have in my possession representations from farmers who come under the 5 per cent REP scheme. No later than today, my constituency office has informed me that they were only dealing with the 5 per cent inspections that were taken out of the system to be put by for inspection in February 1999.

It means that the inspection files for June, July, August and September of this year will not be dealt with under the present system until 2000. People with small incomes from 40 or 50 acres of land will be deprived of their money from the Department until next year. Why can a system not be put in place so that at least 75 per cent of the payment will be made subject to an inspection? This would be reasonable and fair and it would give hope to those people whose incomes have decreased in recent years.

I know people who applied for the farm retirement scheme seven months ago but whose applications have not yet been processed because of a lack of staff. I do not want the Minister to give us the reply that was given to Deputy Johnny Brady today when he asked a parliamentary question on it. It states that the backlog of work in some of the rural development and environmental schemes has arisen in the Department's office in Navan, County Meath, due to recent retirements and resignations. However, this has been a problem since last December. That reply is incorrect and unfair to the people I and the other Deputies in my constituency represent. The office has been understaffed for a long time. The Minister informed us that an RDE inspector was appointed last Monday, 27 September, but two more people are required to do the work in that office. I ask the Minister to give a commitment that people will be seconded from elsewhere to this office to deal with the work. The situation is unfair to people with small incomes.

Mr. Davern:

I sympathise with the Deputy's point. The inspections seem to be done at random because I have already had my third REPS inspection this year and a special beef premium inspection.

The rural environment protection scheme and the scheme of early retirement from farming have both been extremely successful and this is shown by the scale on which they have been taken up by farmers. In 1994, which was the first year of REPS, there were 500 participants. This year that number has increased to almost 43,000. The early retirement scheme began with 1,000 participants in 1994 but it now has more than 8,000.

The success of these schemes is most welcome but it brings its own problems. REPS is worth a projected £160 million to the farming sector in 1999 and the early retirement scheme is worth up to £80 million. Both schemes are funded partly by the Exchequer and partly by the EU. They are governed by EU regulations and they are both necessarily subject to a high degree of control and inspection to ensure that participants continue to meet their obligations. The enormous growth in the number of participants has placed an increasing strain on the limited human resources which my Department can dedicate to them among the many other programmes and services it must deliver.

Applications under REPS are submitted to my Department's local farm development service offices. Nationally, the average time taken to process an application for first payment is less than four weeks.

However, 5 per cent of new applicants are subjected to a detailed pre-payment check, including on-farm inspection, and the processing of these cases naturally takes longer. In the case of applications for REPS payments in the second and subsequent years, 45 per cent are recommended for payment by the district superintendent generally within a few weeks. The remaining 55 per cent are subjected to on-farm checks which take on average eight weeks to do prior to going for payment.

Mr. Farrelly:

Eight months.

Mr. Davern:

In the case of non-compliant participants there are further delays in processing. As regards the early retirement scheme, 10 per cent of applications are subject to a pre-payment check and 10 per cent of all participants are compliance-checked annually.

The Deputy referred specifically to the situation in County Meath. There were 1,091 participants in REPS and 279 participants in the early retirement scheme in County Meath at the beginning of this year. In addition to the heavy demands placed on my Department's limited resources by the volume of participants in the two schemes and the level of inspections required by the control procedures, there are certain local factors in County Meath which have contributed to the delays to which the Deputy referred. The current staffing complement of the Navan office is two rural development and environment inspectors, one district superintendent, one supervisory agricultural officer and two technical agricultural officers. One of the two RDE inspectors retired earlier this month and a replacement was appointed shortly afterwards. The second RDE inspector is resigning and my Department will actively pursue the filling of his post.

The post of district superintendent has been vacant since the previous occupant was transferred to another office at the end of August. My Department is also pursuing the filling of that post as a matter of urgency but, pending an appointment to it, the more pressing work has been carried out by district superintendents from the Dublin and Louth offices in addition to their normal duties. These officers have approved a significant number of payments to farmers participating in REPS. Some 81 such payments were sent in the post today and a further 20 are cleared for payment. I assure the Deputy that the officer filling the post is an extremely efficient and well qualified lady.

Except where there are queries relating to files, REPS inspections are up to date for County Meath. As regards the early retirement scheme, while compliance inspections are up to date, some backlog remains on the processing of new applications and this problem is receiving attention. My Department is committed to providing an acceptable level of service to it clients. At the same time, it must be conscious of the need to maintain a level of control which will guard against errors and abuses in the operation of the various schemes for which it is responsible. My Department is constantly reviewing both its procedures and the way it deploys its limited human resources with a view to meeting both objectives to the greatest extent possible.