EU Regulations governing the administration of all area based schemes including the Rural Environment Protection Scheme (REPS) require that full and comprehensive administrative checks, including cross-checks with the Land Parcel Identification system, must be completed before any payment can issue. EU audits have made it absolutely clear that compliance with the Regulations must be strictly adhered to and that all checks must be passed and eligibility conditions met before payment issues. This means that individual payments may not issue until all aspects of a farmer's application is in order, all outstanding documentation provided and all queries resolved.
The situation in relation to Co. Leitrim is that there are 897 REPS 4 applicants in the county of which 863 have been paid in respect of 2011. The remaining 34 fall under the following categories: 20 are under query awaiting response; the applicants have been written to, more than once in a number of cases, and the processing of payments cannot proceed until responses have been received, 5 are awaiting the outcome of cross checks with area aid declarations, 9 are under investigation for issues arising in the checking process, including the claim from the person named.
The person named commenced REPS 4 in December 2007 and has received payments for the first three years of the Agri-Environmental contract with my Department.
During the course of the administrative checking process for the 2011 payment, an issue arose in relation to the application of Phosphorous under the agri-environmental plan. An adjusted plan was requested from and submitted by the person named. The checks carried out by the local office found that the adjusted plan did not meet the scheme conditions in relation to chemical phosphorous application levels. In accordance with established procedures, the plan was forwarded for further examination and review at regional inspectorate level. The situation is currently being assessed by the inspectorate. I expect that the case will be dealt with shortly, subject to staff resource constraints and, depending on the outcome of the review, that payment will issue as soon as possible in respect of 2011.
The non-payment of the final year's REPS payment to the person named does not arise because of computer error in my Department but rather because of the necessity to resolve an outstanding query related to compliance with the terms of the scheme.
