My Department has received over 123,000 applications for the Single Payment Scheme and 102,000 for the Disadvantaged Areas Scheme. It is expected that when processing is completed over 70,000 of these will require digitising to be carried out on some or all of the land parcels the applicant has submitted, compared to an average of 22,000 in previous years. As a result, my Department has facilitated payment to cases on all digitised land, provided that there are no other errors. To date, over 110,000 applicants have received a Single Farm Payment, as well as 88,000 applicants under the Disadvantaged Area Payments Scheme.
A total of 92,652 applicants have received their full 50% advance under the Single Payment Scheme, while a further 17,337 have received a partial payment. Of the remaining unpaid applicants, 773 have received no payment as yet due to un-digitised land, and these are prioritised by my Department.
Similarly, in the Disadvantaged Area Scheme 58,751 farmers have received full payment, with a further 29,302 farmers receiving a part-payment. Some 2,610 applications remain where all of the land declared requires re-digitising. Payment will be made to these applicants when re-digitising is completed and all errors are cleared provided they meet the minimum stocking density of 0.15 livestock units per hectare. In the past many of these cases were not eligible for payment, as they did not meet the stocking density requirement.