With 70% Basic Payment Scheme (BPS) advance payments to be made to farmers on Monday, 16 October, IFA deputy president Richard Kennedy said it is critical that the Department of Agriculture delivers all payments on time, without any hold-ups.

At a meeting of the Charter of Farmers Rights Monitoring Committee last week, Kennedy said that 130,000 farmers are due a payment under the BPS and there can be no delays in payments, given their critical importance to farm incomes and the pressure on cashflow.

The IFA deputy president told the meeting that farmers will hold the Minister for Agriculture to account on payments and there can be no excuses or delays around inspections, digitising or mapping issues.

Payments under a number of schemes are due to farmers before the end of the year and the IFA will be demanding that all schemes are paid on time. These include payments under GLAS to 50,000 farmers; Knowledge Transfer to 20,000 farmers; Sheep Welfare Scheme to 20,000 farmers; Organic Scheme to 1,700 farmers; AEOS to 2,200 farmers; and BDGP to 24,000 farmers.

Kennedy said that the IFA has made clear to the Department of Agriculture and to Minister Creed that there can be no repeat of delays in payments under any scheme, and the situation that arose in 2016 in GLAS will not be accepted.

Review of inspection and penalties

The IFA deputy president said that the latest figures released by the Department of Agriculture on penalties for inspections on cross-compliance and land eligibility carried out in 2016 show there is an urgent need for a full review of the inspection and penalty regime.

The IFA has called on Minister Creed to extend the current review of the appeals system to cover inspections and penalties to secure worthwhile changes in the CAP simplification process under discussion at EU level. Kennedy said the inspection and penalty system needs to be fundamentally reformed from a regime that sets out to penalise farmers to a system that helps farmers to meet the requirements.

IFA support

If you have a query on schemes, payments or inspections, you can contact the IFA payments and inspections helpline on 1890 989 878 for support and guidance. The IFA can follow up with the Department of Agriculture or other bodies on your behalf, if necessary.