Dáil Éireann Debate, Tuesday - 8 September 2020
1471. Deputy Joe McHugh asked the Minister for Agriculture, Food and the Marine the details of the outcome of the ANC review in County Donegal; the townlands that were excluded; the reason they were excluded; the details for each townland exclusion and if he will make a statement on the matter. [22501/20]
Amharc ar fhreagraThe data requested by the Deputy in relation to townlands in Donegal is currently being compiled. The data will be forwarded directly to the Deputy shortly.
The following deferred reply was received under Standing Order 51
Background
The Areas of Natural Constraints (ANC) scheme has been in place for over 40 years in Ireland, under a number of different names. In essence, the scheme provides financial compensation to farmers in light of the additional cost they incur in farming land that is designated as disadvantaged/constrained.
In advance of payments under the 2019 ANC scheme, Ireland was required under EU Regulation to change the approach used to designating land as eligible for payment under the scheme. Up to that point, Ireland had been identifying eligible areas using a range of socio-economic indicators such as Family Farm Income, population density, percentage of working population engaged in agriculture, stocking density etc.
From 2019, eligible areas were instead required to be designated using the following list of bio-physical criteria:
- Low Temperature
- Dryness
- Excess oil moisture
- Limited soil drainage
- Unfavourable texture and stoniness
- Shallow rooting depth
- Poor chemical properties
- Steep slope
Where a townland displayed one or more of the listed criteria at a level above the threshold of 60% as set out in the Regulation, the townland was identified as constrained.
It was then necessary, under the Regulation, to ‘fine tune’ these constrained areas by reference to the following three categories. Areas above the ‘fine tuning’ threshold in any of the three categories below were deemed to be not eligible for the 2019 ANC Scheme:
A. District Electoral Divisions (DEDs) that displayed a stocking density over a 3 year average at a level above 1.8 livestock units (LU) per hectare
B. DEDs that displayed an average level of above 15% of the agricultural area taken up by arable crops
C. DEDs that displayed a combination of greater than 8% arable coverage and a stocking density of between 1.4 – 1.8 LU per hectare
A third step provided for in the EU Regulations allowed for land to be deemed eligible if it qualified under certain specific constraints. These were:
A. Where 50% or more of the DED is covered by the Natura 2000 Directives lands and the National Heritage Areas.
B. Where the land holding in the DED is in multiple blocks (fragmented) and where the average farm size in a DED is less than 80% of the national average, i.e. less than 25.6 hectares.
C. Where more than 50% of the townland is in permanent grassland and the average field size is less than 4 hectares.
In the case of the category of specific constraint relating to field size and permanent grass cover, this constraint was further focused by reference to national Family Farm Income data. Where this category of constraint applied, national level Family Farm Income statistics were used to identify the cohort most in need of financial support.
Taken together, the above steps identified the lands deemed eligible or ineligible under the scheme in 2019.
Outcome of the process
Following the review, the vast majority of land that was eligible under the existing Scheme remained eligible under the new approach. Nationally, some 700 townlands that would have previously been eligible were no longer eligible under the new designation. A degressive payment was put in place for 2019 and 2020 for farmers who were affected financially by the change in the status of the land. Over 2,000 townlands became eligible under the new approach and were eligible to receive a payment for the first time in 2019.
Appeals Process
DAFM wrote to all impacted farmers advising of the status of their lands under the 2019 ANC scheme. These letters included a form to initiate an appeal to the Independent Appeals Committee. Where an appeal was sought, detailed information in relation to all the steps in the process outlined above was provided to each appellant. This information indicated at which stage the townland in question had not reached the eligibility criteria, and the figures relating to each category. Thus, all the relevant data was provided to appellants.
In each case, the appeal was subject to a full review of underlying data by the Appeal Board. Following the completion of the work of the Independent Appeals Committee, all farmers who had submitted an appeal were notified of the outcome of the appeal. Where an appeal was deemed to be unsuccessful, farmers were advised that they could further appeal the decision to the Office of the Ombudsman.
Position in Donegal
Following the redesignation process, a total of 2,631 townlands located in Donegal were deemed to be eligible for the scheme. A total of 48 townlands were deemed not to be eligible. The Department received appeals in relation to 34 of these ineligible townlands. Following the review of these appeals by the Independent Appeals Committee, 3 of these townlands were subsequently made eligible following the completion of the appeals process. This has brought the total number of eligible townlands located in Donegal to 2,634.
Letters issued to the farmers whose appeals were unsuccessful to advise them of their right to appeal the decision to the Office of the Ombudsman.
Please see attached table that details
- the townlands that were determined not to be eligible following the initial completion of the re-designation process,
- the reason why the townland was not determined to be eligible by reference to the steps in the process outlined above,
- whether an appeal was submitted in relation to the townland and
- whether the appeal was successful or not.
In all of the cases in the table, the townlands in Donegal were deemed ineligible at the fine-tuning stage. In particular, 43 of the townlands were excluded under the fine turning category relating to arable land. The relevant benchmark in this regard is that DEDs with over 15% of agricultural area taken up by arable land were excluded under fine tuning. The range of values for the cases in question was 19%-34%.
The remaining 5 townlands were also excluded at the fine-tuning stage as they are in DEDs that displayed a stocking density over a 3 year average at a level above 1.8 LU per hectare
Having been excluded at the fine-tuning stage, the townlands in question did not subsequently fall into any of the three categories that would have qualified them as eligible as an ‘area of specific constraint.’
Further detailed data in relation all of the relevant townlands for each of the steps of the process is contained in the attached excel file. There is a lot of data in the table, and it matches up to the steps as outlined above. As an aid to interrupting the table I will expand upon Townland E12702 – Blanket Nook.
Step 1 – is the townland over 60% constrained
The green columns refer to the calculations across the biophysical criteria. In this case the total percentage of the townland agricultural biophysical area that is deemed to be constrained is 98.22%. Therefore, at this first step the townland is considered to be constrained as it surpasses the 60% threshold. All the townlands in question pass this threshold.
Step 2 – is the townland fine tuned out?
The blue columns refer to the fine tuning process. In this case, the townland is fine tuned out as the average arable area in the DED is 34.07%. This is higher than the 15% threshold and thus the townland is fine tuned out of eligibility on this basis. The majority of townlands are fine tuned out on this basis. Rows 50-54 on the other hand are fine tuned out as the DED has a stocking density higher than 1.8 LU per hectare.
Step 3 – Having being fine tuned out, does the townland become eligible under any of the criteria related to Areas of Specific Constraints.
The yellow columns refer to the areas of specific constraints process. In this case, the townland does not meet the threshold in any of the 3 possible categories, as follows
a. The townland does not have an area greater than 50% covered by N2k directives etc. In this case the figure is 27.77%
b. The average farm size in the DED is not lower than 80% of the national average. In this case the average is 47.26 ha
c. The joint criteria of the townland having more than 50% permanent grassland and an average field size less than 4 hectares has not been met. In this case, the figures are 23.49% and 3.78 ha
