Section 1: Main features of Direct Payments

Annual Ceilings for Ireland

The national ceiling refers to the amount of money allocated to each Member State for each year of direct payments. This is a fixed amount for each year and will not change. Ireland’s allocation for each year of the direct payments is as follows;

2015 €1,215,003,000

2016 €1,213,470,000

2017 €1,211,899,000

2018 €1,211,482,000

2019 €1,211,066,000

Ireland’s national ceiling decreases slightly each year to take account of the impact of the redistribution of funds between Member States. The overall decrease between 2015 and 2019 is just under four million Euros.

Introducing New Schemes

The 2014 scheme year will be the last year in which the current Single Payment Scheme is applied.

All entitlements held under the Single Payment Scheme will expire on the 31 December 2014.

The Single Payment Scheme is replaced by the Basic Payment Scheme. A new set of entitlements will be allocated in 2015 to those eligible for an allocation under the Basic Payment Scheme.

In addition to the Basic Payment Scheme, Ireland must introduce the ‘Payment for Agricultural Practices beneficial for the Climate and the Environment’ or ‘Greening’ as it is more commonly known. A very significant percentage of the national ceiling (30%) is allocated to Greening each year and all farmers who participate in the Basic Payment Scheme must also implement the Greening provisions.

Ireland will also implement a Young Farmers Scheme which will provide an additional payment to those young farmers who are eligible.

In addition Ireland will also establish a National Reserve. Priority for allocation of entitlements from the National Reserve is given to young farmers and to those who are commencing their agricultural activities in 2013 or after.

A Coupled Support for Protein Crops will also be made available. The details of this scheme will be announced in due course.

As direct payments from 2015 will take the form of four distinct schemes, the payment that a farmer receives under the new Direct Payment system is no longer a ‘single payment’ but will be a combination of payments. All eligible farmers will receive the Basic Payment Scheme and Greening while some farmers may also qualify for a further payment under the Young Farmers Scheme or under the Coupled Support for Protein Crops.

The following table presents the schemes that will be implemented in Ireland as part of Direct Payments in 2015. The ‘farmer’ column shows whether the scheme is also mandatory for individual farmers;

Note: only those farmers who participate in the Basic Payment Scheme are eligible to participate in the other schemes (with the exception of Coupled Support for Protein Crops)

The Role of ‘Entitlements’

Under the current Single Payment Scheme, a farmer receives a ‘single payment’ from the one ‘Single Payment Scheme’ based on the number and value of the entitlements s/he holds. Under the new Scheme, entitlements are used by the Basic Payment Scheme. The total payment that a farmer receives therefore is only partly based on the entitlements s/he holds. The remainder of the payment is based on ‘Greening’ and any other scheme that the farmer may participate in. At a minimum, every eligible farmer will receive a payment that arises from the Basic Payment Scheme and a payment from ‘Greening’ (which shall be calculated as a fixed percentage of the entitlement value activated by the farmer in a given year). ;

For example, a farmer who received the Single Payment under the current scheme and who is eligible to participate in the Basic Payment Scheme may also be eligible for the Young Farmers Scheme and Coupled Support for Protein Crops. His payment would therefore be divided up as follows;

Comparison of payment under the Single Payment Scheme and the new Direct Payments Regime