Oireachtas Joint and Select Committees

Tuesday, 21 January 2014

Select Committee on Agriculture, Food and the Marine

Estimates for Public Services 2014
Vote 30 - Department of Agriculture, Food and the Marine (Revised)

3:55 pm

Photo of Andrew DoyleAndrew Doyle (Wicklow, Fine Gael) | Oireachtas source

I will not get into this here, but there are cases where because of difficulties in the years of the wet summers, people did not get in to carry our normal maintenance on ground that would need topping and it appears on the map. There is a process to request a physical inspection of the land by a Department inspector. It is good to highlight the cases and the various different situations that can arise but we need to be reassured that the process is fair and adequately resourced so that these cases can be assessed individually. The most important thing is for the Department to take a proactive approach to getting people under the thresholds of 20% and 3%. For the purposes of this meeting, which is an Estimates meeting, we need to ensure there are adequate resources for the process to be conducted. I could cite several cases of people who would argue that these maps had been signed off in 2010 and that they would not be retrospectively challenged again.

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