Over €480m was paid out to 105,000 farmers in the first wave of advance payments last week. Farmers signed up to the Department’s mobile texting service got a text message saying they were paid. The money took a few days to make its way into farmers’ accounts.

The Department did not release figures for the number of additional farmers they have processed and paid in the last week. They did say that they would continue issuing advance payments twice weekly up until 30 November. After that, the focus will switch to balancing payments.

It leaves up to 16,000 farmers who were not paid their advance in the first wave. There is normally a number of reasons for this, ranging from inspection cases to farmers who have dual claims or over-claims.

The Minister urged anybody who has received correspondence from his Department highlighting problems in relation to their application to respond without delay, as by doing so, their cases can then be processed to finality and payments issued.

Under DAS, there is also no update from the €165m that has been issued to nearly 80,000 farmers.

A number of farmers have contacted me about the reduction to their advance payments. In the past, the €5,000 threshold for modulation meant the advance payment was bigger than the balance of payments made in December for most farmers.

The thing is that farmers who were paid over €5,000 in 2013 are forgetting that the value of entitlements was reduced by 10.39%. So the 50% they are getting in advance is from a lower total amount.

It all means that farmers will be paid largely what they got in 2013. Farmers with payments over €5,000 will see their advance payment be at least €500 less. For many farmers, this will be made up in the balance.

Farmers with payments under €5,000 will get the same advance payment as previous years

Farmers suffering inspections, be they done remotely or on-farm, feel the most hard done by. A number of people contacted me to say their advance payments have been held up by over-claims as low as 0.2ha

IFA deputy president Tim O’Leary has said it is totally unacceptable that payments to farmers under the Single Farm Payment advance and the Areas of Natural Constraint are being held up because they have been subject to a Department of Agriculture satellite inspection or on-farm inspection.

“Delays in payments are compounding the cashflow and income difficulties on livestock farms, which depend on a very significant degree on direct payments for their income. Minister Coveney must immediately intervene and sort out the hold-up,” he said.

The Department said that 85% of transfer forms are processed and these farmers can expect full payment. Where there is an unprocessed claim, the farmer buying in entitlements will be paid out the advance on what entitlements are on their account. Once the transfer has been cleared, any additional payments will be made as part of the balance of payments. However, the seller will not be paid their advance until the transfer application is fully processed.