Vol. 577 No. 3
188 Mr. Ring asked the Minister for Agriculture and Food when a person (details supplied) in County Mayo, whose area aid application has been cleared for payment on 39.07 hectares, will be awarded area based payments for 2003. [31402/03]
The person named included a land parcel on his 2003 area aid application which was also being claimed by another applicant. The area aid unit of my Department wrote to the two applicants involved to clarify the situation. Replies were received from both applicants and the matter was resolved. The 2003 area aid application of the person named has been fully processed with an area determined for payment purposes of 39.07 hectares.
One of the terms and conditions of the area-based compensatory allowance scheme is that applicants must meet a minimum stocking density of 0.15 livestock units per forage hectare of the holding in the year preceding application. However, farmers who are unable to meet that minimum stocking density but who traditionally qualified for headage grants in respect of cattle and-or sheep may continue to qualify for payment, provided their land is being utilised and is not in danger of under grazing. While the person named was a headage recipient in 2000 and applied on 30 ewes under the 2003 ewe premium scheme, he does not hold 2003 ewe premium quota. It will be necessary therefore to have an on-farm inspection carried out. Following the inspection, a decision on entitlement to 2003 area-based compensatory allowance will be made.
