Dáil Éireann Debate, Tuesday - 15 November 2022
609. Deputy Brendan Griffin asked the Minister for Agriculture, Food and the Marine if a full review will be carried out on the unexplained reduction in the entitlements held by a farmer (details supplied) in County Kerry; and if he will make a statement on the matter. [56308/22]
Amharc ar fhreagraWhen an overclaim under the Basic Payment Scheme is identified by my Department, it is a requirement under EU Regulation, inter alia, to carry out a review of the ineligible feature/s that contributed to that overclaim in the year of finding.
If the feature/s were present for a period of four years prior to the year of finding, the Basic Payment applications in question must be re-processed taking the ineligible feature/s into account.
During processing of this application in 2018, four ineligible areas were identified. An overclaim letter issued to the person named and he replied on 12th December 2018, accepting the reduced eligible area. My Department then examined available imagery for this land parcel and concluded that these ineligible areas were present on the parcel in previous years.
A Notification letter to this effect issued on 26th August 2021 which included relevant land parcel maps showing the features in question. This letter also informed him of the possibility of overpayments resulting from this finding and the potential entitlement implications. It also included his right to have the matter reviewed, if he so wished.
As no review request was received, the applications from 2014 to 2017 were re-processed. The revised determined area for 2015 Basic Payment resulted in a reduction of his entitlements due to undue allocation.
Subsequent to the land amendments, my Department completed a review of the entitlements position of the person named. Where, after payment entitlements have been allocated to beneficiaries in accordance with Regulation (EU) No 1307/2013, it is established that the number of payment entitlements allocated was too high, the number of allocated payment entitlements in excess shall revert to the National Reserve.
As the year of finding by the Basic Payment Section was 2018, the unduly allocated entitlements were removed from the entitlement account of the person named in 2018 and this reduced the total number of entitlements held by him in 2018.
