A review of farm inspections and the process for farmers to appeal their outcomes is under way after the Oireachtas Agriculture Committee grilled senior Department of Agriculture officials for four hours on Tuesday.

A steering committee has been “set up by the Minister for Agriculture Michael Creed, to instigate a review of the Agriculture Appeals Act 2001 which put the appeals process in place”, committee chair Pat Deering told the Irish Farmers Journal.

A Department spokesperson said that the appeals review was a commitment of the programme for Government and is due to be completed by the end of this year.

Agriculture committee vice-chair Jackie Cahill called for farmers’ representatives to be present on the appeals body to restore farmers’ confidence in the process.

According to Cahill, secretary general of the Department of Agriculture Aidan O’Driscoll also conceded that changes to the terms and conditions of schemes were made without consultation with farming organisations.

Cahill said this was “against the farmers’ rights charter”, adding: “I know of two farmers who suffered heavy penalties because of the bullet point added in 2012 that you’d have to have a lease in place before leasing land.”

He said that other examples discussed at the meeting included changes to the way unannounced inspections were conducted.

Working with farmers

Both TDs said that O’Driscoll had committed to meeting farming organisations to work out a better way of communicating changes to payments’ terms and conditions.

Tuesday’s closed-door hearing followed that of north Tipperary IFA chair Tim Cullinan last week, in which he highlighted the high rate of inspections and penalties in his area.

Cullinan welcomed the commitments made by Department officials and said: “They accepted that changes were made each year to the handbook for the Basic Payment Scheme without going through the Charter of Farmers’ Rights process and said they were willing to look at that. It’s up to us now in IFA to engage with the Department on these issues.”

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