Dáil Éireann Debate, Wednesday - 18 February 2004
89 Mr. J. Breen asked the Minister for Agriculture and Food if oral hearings will be set up to deal with appeals under the force majeure clause for farmers who fail in their written submissions; and if he will make a statement on the matter. [5110/04]
Amharc ar fhreagraAs of now, under the single payment scheme, some 136,000 farmers will qualify for payment of €1.3 billion annually out of the national envelope. The Department is processing applications from 14,000 farmers who have requested that force majeure — exceptional circumstances be taken into consideration so that they too may be allocated single payment entitlement or at a higher level than that which they currently qualify for from the €1.3 billion envelope. Any person dissatisfied with the decision of the Department on force majeure — exceptional circumstances in their case will have the right to appeal.
Where following the application of force majeure — exceptional circumstances the sum of entitlements for all farmers exceeds the national envelope of €1.3 billion, a linear percentage reduction will have to be applied to all farmers. I am considering the appeals mechanism that can be put in place for those farmers. The primary objective in all these matters is to ensure fairness and impartiality leading to the smooth implementation of the single payment scheme in 2005.
I thank the Minister of State for his reply and wish him well in his quest for greener pastures in a few months' time. A mechanism needs to be put in place to help farmers who have been forced to retire prematurely through no fault of their own. They may now be denied payments and their written submissions may be refused. It is not too much to ask that there should be a system to afford them an oral hearing. I do not believe many will be turned down. Will the Minister of State ensure that every case is examined on its merits and sympathetically in some cases?
I assure the Deputy that this will be an open and transparent operation. The objective of the Department is to ensure that every person receives fair play. Like the Deputy, Members also meet varying cases at their weekly clinics and we are aware of the issue. The Minister has decided that an independent appeals committee will be established to process in a fair, comprehensive and efficient manner appeals on all aspects of the single payment regime.
A committee to be known as the single payment appeals committee will be established. This is a separate committee and will comprise four appeals officers attached to the agricultural office in Portlaoise and an independent chairperson. The committee will meet in Portlaoise initially. It is proposed that the committee should meet for one day a week commencing in mid-March, but this will be subject to review and it may have to expand during the summer due to the number of appeals that have been received by the Department.
At the outset, the appeals committee will examine cases of farmers whose applications for force majeure were unsuccessful. It will take into consideration the situation of farmers depending on the number of animals, area applied for during the reference period, or other circumstances such as bad health, illness or animal disease. The Department has already received more than 14,000 applications and the Deputy can appreciate the difficulty in processing all those. It is hoped that the initial decisions will be made in early March. I assure the Deputy that each individual applicant will receive the fullest consideration. I remind the Deputy that, whatever decisions might be made in that regard, there will be an adjustment under the €1.3 billion national package.
Question No. 90, which is a priority question, cannot be taken because the Deputy is not present.
