Vol. 552 No. 2
9 Mr. Quinn asked the Minister for Agriculture, Food and Rural Development if he is taking action to combat understaffing which is delaying REP scheme payments to many farmers; and if he will make a statement on the matter. [11889/02]
A small number of vacancies at the levels of supervisory agricultural officer, district superintendent and assistant agricultural inspector remain to be filled in the REP scheme area. There is also a job-sharing vacancy at clerical officer level to be filled. My Department is making arrangements to have these vacancies filled and it is expected that the majority of these vacancies will be filled by the end of May. My Department has assigned an additional district superintendent to the farm development service in the Galway area and is making arrangements to assign 13 additional supervisory agricultural officer posts to the farm development service area. Two additional clerical officers were assigned to this area in January and another will be assigned shortly.
