Dáil Éireann díospóireacht -
Tuesday, 28 Mar 2000

Vol. 516 No. 6

Written Answers. - Refusal of Payments.

Enda Kenny

Ceist:

239 Mr. Kenny asked the Minister for Agriculture, Food and Rural Development the number of persons who were refused cattle headage payments in respect of 1999 for technical reasons; if he has taken up these matters with Brussels in order that some flexibility may be shown where mistakes in completing forms were of a minor nature and unintentional and if he will make a statement on the matter. [8923/00]

Minister for Agriculture, Food and Rural Development (Mr. Walsh)

The EU regulations governing the operation of the cattle headage-beef cow headage scheme and those regulations governing the integrated administration and control system lay down specific penalties to be imposed where farmers fail to comply with the terms and conditions of the schemes. Farmers are not penalised for obvious errors in completing application forms. Where obvious errors occur on applications my Department endeavours to have the errors corrected without penalty by contacting the farmers concerned. In fact staff at local offices spend much time on this issue during the processing of applications each year.

The applications which have not been paid under the 1999 cattle headage-beef cow scheme are unpaid for various reasons. For example, 904 applications have not been processed for payment at local office level due to ongoing queries with the farmers concerned. Over 790 farmers did not submit an area aid application or submitted it or their cattle headage-beef cow scheme application outside the period for lodging applications and cannot be paid their grants as a result. Some 230 farmers who applied for grants under the 1999 cattle headage-beef cow scheme had insufficient area to qualify for any payment. Forty farmers incurred a 100% shortfall penalty, i.e., no payment as a result of not presenting a sufficient number of animals at inspections even though the animals were declared on their application forms. In addition, 88 farmers were excluded from the scheme for one year due to false declarations on their applications through serious negligence. Nine farmers were excluded for two years. They were deemed to have made intentional false declarations on their applications. The remaining cases unpaid at present have problems with their area aid applications and it is not possible to say at this stage how many will receive payment as this will depend on the resolution of the queries concerned.