To date a total of 53 scrapie infected sheep flocks have been depopulated, including three within the past week. The position at present is that payments have issued in respect of 48 of these cases. The remainder of the claims are being processed and payments will issue shortly. Some of these flocks were depopulated immediately prior to the Christmas holiday period.
While my Department had indicated that as a general rule payment would be made to flockowners within 14 working days of the slaughter of flocks, it had also pointed out that in cases where it was not possible to have an order for payment with the Department's accounts branch by 7 December there would be a delay until after the Christmas period. Such delays arose because of additional work required in our accounts branch because of the euro changeover.
It is also the case that the volume and complexity of paperwork associated with each case and with a compensation package which is entirely new, and the fact that all flocks with cases confirmed since 1 January 1999 were slaughtered in the same short period added difficulties to the processing of claims. Now that the initial backlog of claims is cleared, my Department will do its utmost to ensure more prompt payment in the case of future depopulated flocks.