Minister for Agriculture Simon Coveney has come out strongly to defend his Department’s progress on issuing payments to farmers.

In a series of answers to questions put to the Minister by the Irish Farmers Journal, he states that the Department of Agriculture has been very effective in issuing payments.

“Payments in terms of numbers are on a par with 2014 and are fully in line with the charter of commitments,” he said.

The Minister stated that, strictly speaking, 2015 is not comparable to 2014, given the need to introduce new complex schemes and systems and the two-week extension in the application deadline. The Minister said if the two-week extension is taken into account, the number of farmers paid at the end of October this year was in line with the levels paid at the comparable date of 16 October in 2014.

The latest figures show that 107,878 farmers have received BPS payments totalling €680.6m. “Over 90% of farmers have now been paid their advance payment,” said the Minister.

In relation to the Areas of Natural Constraints (ANC) scheme, formerly the Disadvantaged Area Scheme, 82,242 farmers have received payments totalling €175m. Over 80% of farmers have now been paid in full.

“Under ANC, over 10,000 farmers will not achieve the stocking density/holding requirement until the end of December and cannot be paid until early next year,” he said.

Listen to Minister Coveney's interview on payments with our digital editor Thomas Hubert below:

IFA deputy president Tim O Leary disagreed with the Minister, saying the slow pace of processing and the backlog of payments under the Basic Payment Scheme is unacceptable and that he must intervene with the Department to remove the barriers preventing an advance payment to all farmers at this stage.

He said the delay in payments will be the major issue at next week’s first meeting of the new Charter of Rights Monitoring Committee, under the chairmanship of Sean Brady.

They are demanding that the Department makes an advance to all farmers without delay and a clear schedule is put forward by the Department as to when the issues holding back payments will be resolved.

There is growing anger and frustration among farmers who have not received their advance payment. Tim said what is even more annoying is that they are often unable to make contact with the Department and if and when they do they are not being told when their issues will be resolved.

Under query

“Outstanding cases are mainly under query with the applicants concerned,” Minister Coveney said. The queries include incomplete applications, over-claims and dual claims in respect of BPS and stocking density, retention period and area queries in respect of ANC.

They encouraged any farmers where the Department has requested outstanding information to engage with the Department immediately to enable further processing of their case.

He pointed to the situation across Europe, saying that Ireland is one of the first member states to make payments in 2015, as has been the case in previous years.

“No BPS payments have yet been made by our closest neighbour in the UK,” the Minister said.

Talking specifically about the issues in relation to partnerships, the Department said a total of 851 newly registered farm partnerships were set up in 2015. Individual examination of each case is required to ensure the correct allocation of entitlements under the new CAP reform is allocated to each eligible partner. They said over 550 partnership cases are processed to payment at this stage.

Regarding private contract clauses in 2015, unlike previous years, each transfer measure is attached to land. To process the transfer and in particular a PCC requires an extensive amount of validation to ensure adherence to EU regulations.

PCC payment

It is expected that a significant amount of PCC farmers will receive payment in the coming week.

The Department stated that there is no undue delay or backlog in digitisation as had been reported.

The Department is prioritising the processing of all such outstanding cases, with regular payment runs continuing over the coming weeks for all fully processed cases. He also urged farmers to respond to any Department requests as quickly as possible so that their case may be processed.

The Minster said he is very aware of the importance of BPS and ANC payments for farmers. He said that the Department appreciates farmers’ patience in this process, and he can assure you that every effort is being put into clearing BPS and ANC cases for payment.

If a farmer has an outstanding query on his/her application, it may be the case that my officials have already been in touch with them to request further documentation, etc.

Preparations are also under way to issue the balancing payments to farmers under the BPS. This balancing payment will be made from 1 December, and will represent 27% of the BPS payment for those cases cleared for payment.

The final payment (3%) will then fall due to cleared cases in 2016.

National Reserve

The Minster said that approval letters for National Reserve Entitlements will issue later this month and payments will commence after balancing payment in early December as agreed.

Young Farmers Scheme (YFS) approval letters will also issue later this month and payments will commence after balancing payment in early December as agreed. The majority of Scottish Derogation applicants have received payment.