Dáil Éireann Debate, Thursday - 8 May 2014
4. Deputy Éamon Ó Cuív asked the Minister for Agriculture, Food and the Marine the total number of penalties and disallowances imposed on the 2013 single farm payment applications and disadvantaged payment applications following inspections and also the examination of farmers' maps; the total monetary value of these penalties; the total number of farmers who have had a 100% penalty imposed; and if he will make a statement on the matter. [20374/14]
Amharc ar fhreagraEverywhere I go I meet farmers who complain that their single farm payment was cut last year because of the inspections and changes to the maps. There seem to be significant difficulties in the west of the Minister's county. I ask the Minister to provide me with factual information as to the effect of all these penalties on farmers across the country last year and, in particular, information on the number of farmers who lost their total payment, which is equivalent to a PAYE person losing his or her income.
Under the terms and conditions of the direct aid schemes, which include the single payment scheme and the disadvantaged area scheme, farmers are obliged to declare only eligible land when making their applications, ensuring they exclude ineligible features such as roads, buildings, farmyards and dense scrub. These claims are then recorded on my Department’s land parcel identification system, LPIS. Given the importance of the LPIS database and the inspection system in underpinning direct aid payments worth in excess of €1.5 billion annually, my Department is obliged under EU regulations to ensure their accuracy. In the context of delivering the single farm payment scheme, the disadvantaged area scheme and other area-related schemes, my Department is required to carry out an annual round of inspections covering the eligibility of the land declared to draw down payments. The basis for these inspections is governed by EU legislation and there are certain minimum numbers that must be conducted each year. The details of the inspection results for the 2013 schemes are shown in the following table.
|
Scheme |
Total No. of Cases with Payment Reduction |
Total Value of Payment Reductions |
Total No. of Cases with Sanctions/Penalties |
Total Value of Sanctions/Penalties |
|
Single Payment Scheme |
2,017 |
€0.685 million |
759 |
€1.060 million |
|
Disadvantaged Areas Scheme |
1,629 |
€0.176 million |
744 |
€0.279 million |
Following consultation with the European Commission, as part of the normal accounting process, my Department was requested to undertake a complete review of the LPIS database. This has resulted in a requirement to adjust the land parcels of a significant number of applicants where it was established that ineligible features had been included. To date, this review has resulted in the withholding of just over €10 million in single payment scheme payments from approximately 33,000 farmers and a further €2.3 million in disadvantaged area payments in 2013. A total of 276 applicants had 100% penalties under the 2013 single payment scheme, while 284 had 100% penalties under the 2013 disadvantaged areas scheme. In total, the review covers more than 132,000 applicants and the land parcels declared by them as eligible for payment under one of more of the mentioned schemes. It should be remembered that my Department operates a robust appeals mechanism, whereby, in the first instance, farmers may appeal internally to officials within my Department and then directly to the Agriculture Appeals Office, with final recourse to the Office of the Ombudsman.
The Minister has given out a lot of figures. It looked great at the beginning; I thought to myself, my God, only 2,000 were penalised. However, it then turned out that the figure was really 33,000. Will the Minister confirm that 33,000 represents over one quarter of all farmers?
Does the Deputy wish me to respond now?
The Deputy has one minute in which to ask a question.
Yes, I know, but I still got the attention of the Minister. How many of these farmers will be penalised retrospectively because of the recalibration of the LPIS? An ordinary farmer could never have carried out these calculations with the accuracy required by the Department.
There is nothing new here. The Deputy is attempting to make a big new story out of something that we have been debating now for about nine months.
It is not going away.
I have always said that about 73% or 74% of farmers are totally unaffected by this. There is a cohort of farmers, approximately 20%, who have a minor issue with regard to overclaims of less than 2% or 3% on ineligible land.
The repayments those farmers must make are very small. The payments they did not get last year as a result of ineligible land are very small. There are also a very small number of farmers - in the low hundreds - who have claimed on over 20% of their land, which requires a 100% penalty. We need to work out a way forward with those farmers.
This is public money. There are only two ways to deal with this. Either we try to deal with it accurately ourselves on a parcel-by-parcel, case-by-case and farm-by-farm basis, or the Commission will deal with it by making an estimate. It will multiply that estimate by five, seven or ten and that will be a disallowance or a fine which every farmer will have to pay because it will come out of the agriculture budget. That fine could be up to €160 million, which is the figure we have been quoted. The Deputy knows that and I appeal to him to help us to resolve this issue in as fair a way as possible for farmers so that there is a minimal impact on agriculture as a whole.
I asked the Minister how many would be penalised retrospectively over what I understand can be up to five years. It is very important that we get that figure. Does the Minister have a breakdown of the penalty applied? In other words, 33,000 farmers made some mistake, and to think that these set out to give the wrong data to the Department is outrageous.
That is not the point.
How many of these are on land holdings of less than 20 hectares? Does the proportion of farmers who got caught in this system increase as the farm size decreases? A question I asked the Department previously is what percentage of those who were penalised because they had an error of more than 3%, which means they lose three times the overclaim, had land acreage of less than 20 ha. It is disproportionately hitting the smaller farmer because a much smaller error has a much bigger effect on a small farm.
This is about accuracy, public money being drawn down and land that was not eligible.
Will the Minister give me the facts? I was not looking for a moral lecture.
The Minister has the floor.
I will not take a barracking from the Deputy. The Deputy is trying to spin this into some kind of anti-small farmer agenda, which is absolute nonsense.
I asked a question.
I am giving the Deputy an answer, so he should listen. This is about public money being drawn down on land that was not eligible. We can see it is not eligible because of the accuracy of maps. The European Commission is insisting on asking for its money back plus penalties. For countries that cannot do that, it is applying very significant fines. I am trying to ensure we minimise the exposure of Irish agriculture as a whole and that we try to treat individual farms as fairly as we can through an appeals system and through giving the benefit of the doubt to farmers when it is reasonable to do so.
I do not have exact figures in terms of individual farm size and the percentages for which the Deputy is asking. I think the Deputy knows I probably do not have that to hand.
Why? It is easy enough to get.
If any farmer feels he or she is being unfairly treated, there is an appeals system in the Department, which has been successful for farmers in terms of the percentage success rate so far, and there is a further appeals mechanism outside the Department if the farmer feels he or she is not getting fair treatment. That is about as fair as we can be.
We will also look at the retrospective issue because we have to do so, and we will try to put repayment programmes in place for farmers in a way that is as fair as possible and protects cashflow for farmers as best we can.
Will the Minister get me the data on how many people have been asked for retrospective payments? Will the Minister arrange for that to be sent to me?
I do not know what the answer is.
I have answered the question.
If it is a separate question, the Deputy can table a separate question.
