Mr. Henry O'Donnell:

First, as vice chair of the Irish Natura and Hill Farmers Association, I want to thank the committee for affording us the opportunity to discuss issues of major importance to our members. As I am sure members all understand, there are several items that we would like to discuss but on this occasion we will try to concentrate on five and we hope that we can get to address the committee again the near future to discuss other issues.

The first item we want to address is the impact and cost land designations are having on farmers. For those who may not be familiar with these actions, farmers are required to get consent from the National Parks and Wildlife Service or the Department of Agriculture, Food and the Marine for actions such as controlled burning, topping, clearing scrub, increasing or reducing stock numbers and changing or introducing stock not found in the area. Further restrictions apply to farmers on hill land with a Natura designation, where permission is required for the spreading of lime, inorganic or organic fertiliser including slurry and farm yard manure and the supplementary feeding of livestock. The list goes on.

However, getting permission is just a small part of the problem. Full planning permission is now a requirement from the relevant county councils for any new fence or any other action requiring planning. To get planning permission, farmers need to draft a Natura impact statement costing anything from €1,000 to €3,000. Add to this the cost of an engineer and other planning-related costs and the overall cost often exceeds €4,000. These costs are putting farmers at a competitive disadvantage to farmers who do not have designated land. This is blatantly unfair and we are asking the committee to recommend that these farmers get these State-enforced costs reimbursed by the State.

Another issue relating to land designations is how they restrict landowners' ability to generate income from their land. Options available to other farmers are not available on designated land. This burden imposed on our land has never been acknowledged by the State. This has to change. We have been told in Brussels that they estimate the cost of designation at €150 per hectare per year. We believe it is not unreasonable to expect this. A very poor attempt is being made through GLAS to address this problem with €79 per hectare, but it does not pay on every hectare and this is not acceptable to us. If the money is not available then lift the designations.

To conclude on this matter we emphasise that we are not against the idea of protecting valuable habitats. However, we do not believe that we should take on board the full costs of this. If they are as valuable as everyone says, then work with us and reward us for the cost in having them and protecting them. Failure to do so makes our State no better than the biggest landgrabber of all, Oliver Cromwell.

The second issue we want to address relates to farm inspections and Department appeals. We all know that inspections are a requirement for all farm payments but we also believe that they should not hold up these payments. Almost 4,000 farmers are still awaiting their basic payments and ANC moneys because of small anomalies and the digitising of maps. These payments should have been made to farmers but due to circumstances outside their control they are now left without vital income, four weeks from Christmas. This would not be accepted by any other sector so why are we being victimised? A number of years ago home help workers were left waiting a number of weeks for expenses incurred and there was justified outrage over it. But every year thousands of farmers are left waiting weeks, and often months, for a significant part of their income and it does not seem to matter.

While we are well aware of the work carried out by many Oireachtas Members in trying to sort out individual payments for farmers, we need to sort the overall problem. Inspections on declared reference areas need to be concluded by mid-August, with farmers notified of any problems by mid-September as required under the charter of rights for farmers. Why can this not happen and why, as our State legislators, can members of the committee not insist that this does happen?

Another action that we need to see implemented is payment by the Department on any reference area not in dispute. This action would ensure that almost every farmer was certain of getting payment when due. Why this has not happened we do not know; maybe someone in here can enlighten us. However, the suspicion of farmers affected by this is that the Department of Agriculture, Food and the Marine would lose control if this action was implemented and it would result in a lot more farmers contesting these decisions. Farmers cannot currently contest these decisions because that would delay all their payments.

Finally on this issue, we would like to get clarity on the agricultural appeals office. This office, we believe, is no longer fit for purpose, which may be a conclusion shared in this House as a review of it is included in the programme for Government. Maybe someone in here can clarify what the present situation is. We would like to see it replaced by a new appeals board that has farmer representation on it. We also recommend the following - where a farmer faces a possible penalty following a farm inspection then all decision-making documentation be given to the farmer by the Department of Agriculture, Food and the Marine so the farmer can make an informed decision on a possible appeal; all decisions must be fully enforceable against the Department of Agriculture, Food and the Marine with the burden of proof on the Department; all decisions should be reached within three months of them first appearing in front of the board and farmers should continue to be paid any benefit not at issue until a final decision is reached; and only information received by the farmer from the Department of Agriculture, Food and the Marine when the original decision was issued is allowed and no further information can be added on the day of the appeal. If successful, the farmer should be awarded expert costs and interest.

I will now deal with GLAS and commonage management plans, taking the issue of commonages first. At the moment we have interim commonage management plans which will ensure commonage farmers get their GLAS payment along with every other GLAS farmer. We welcome this but it seems there could be almost 400 commonages that either have no appointed planner or had a planner appointed who is no longer in a position to complete the interim plan to ensure farmers are paid. The latter seem to be predominantly FRS planners who worked on contract for Teagasc. Our concern is for the farmers on these commonages who may not get a payment due to no fault of theirs. This cannot happen and we would ask that members intervene with the Department of Agriculture, Food and the Marine to ensure payment for these farmers. There seems to be no mechanism for a group of commonage farmers to change a commonage planner if they are dissatisfied with their performance, even though they have to pay the planner.

On the issue of the CMP, it now appears that the plans will not have to be completed until summer 2017. However, the most important thing is that the plans be sustainable and protect all the farmers' payments provided they carry meet all the requirements under the plan. So far, we have not got that confirmed by the Department even though it appears to contradict EU requirements. These require actions in a pillar 2 scheme – GLAS – to be above and beyond actions in a pillar 1 scheme – the basic payment. This fact was made known to us by officials in the EU Commission.

Last Friday, a further bombshell was delivered to commonage farmers seeking to join GLAS 3 in a Department-issued circular. It states commonage farmers "Must have submitted an SPS claim for his/her commonage share in 2014". The question is why? Any other applicant to GLAS 3 qualifies provided he has made an application in 2016. This is blatant discrimination against commonage farmers who have actively engaged in the management of commonages by acquiring dormant shares and becoming active on commonages. Further to this, farmers who entered GLAS 1 and 2 and are unhappy with aspects of their GLAS plans but who have complied fully with them are not now being allowed to transfer into GLAS 3 unless they forgo their 2016 payment. At the same time, there are tillage farmers who are being allowed to switch into GLAS 3 without penalty and, in some cases, they get GLAS plus. We cannot have the Department manipulating the terms and conditions of GLAS to direct pillar 2 moneys to tillage farmers instead of providing them with a proper compensation package for losses suffered due to bad weather conditions. These issues will be brought to Brussels, if necessary.

Moving away from the commonages, one of the biggest issues we have had with GLAS was the apparent exclusion of farmers on private hill land with no Natura designation and farmers on the more marginal land. Both of these groups are farming what we perceive as high-nature-value farmland and, as such, should have being given priority access to any agri-environmental scheme. It appears to us that the fact that they were farming in an environmental friendly way has actually worked against them. Perhaps there is a move to reduce their income and encourage them to go into forestry, especially on the lowlands. These farmers should be given a proper explanation as to why they were excluded.

On the subject of forgotten farmers, there is a group of young farmers under 40 who begun farming between 2003 and 2008 and who, for various reasons, were never able to avail of the limited reserves at that time and never got installation aid. These farmers, who have proven their commitment to farming, are being left behind by comparison with other young farmers. We know this issue has been addressed by the joint Oireachtas committee, which recommended that these farmers be looked after and brought up to the national average for basic payment and greening. This commitment to ensure fairness for these farmers has also been included in the program for Government. We would like to know the current status of these commitments.

Let us consider the areas of natural constraint, ANC, scheme. We understand the review of areas in this scheme should be completed by summer 2017. We provisionally welcome the scientific model and map of constraints being produced by the Department. It should reflect the areas of most constraint. These areas need to be fully compensated under the scheme. The existing scheme payments do not reflect the actual constraint and have been further diluted by political intervention in recent times. As it stands, qualifying lands are paid as follows: mountain type land attracts €109.70 on the first 10 ha and €95.99 on the next 24; lowland and more severely handicapped land attracts €95.99 per hectare on 30 ha; and lowland that is less severely handicapped attracts €82.27 per hectare on 30 ha. Some 75% of agricultural land in Ireland receives an ANC payment. These bands are too narrow, with only €13 separating the payment for mountain-type land, attracting €95.99 per hectare, and the payment for lowland that is less severely handicapped, attracting €82.27 per hectare. The INHFA proposal is to target the payment to reflect fairly the level of constraint of the land type by increasing the rate per hectare, increasing the number of eligible hectares and front-loading payments on the first 20 ha.

With an additional €25 million allocated for the scheme next year, the INHFA is calling for these moneys to be targeted at the areas with the largest level of constraint. We are also requesting that unspent moneys in pillar 2, and particularly in the GLAS scheme, be used to put a meaningful budget in place for the ANC scheme. This will ensure full annual expenditure of rural development programme moneys and, in the process, target moneys at the most vulnerable farmers, who have suffered from successive cuts to this payment in recent times.

We understand this review will present major challenges for many politicians, but we hope they will see what is fair. In the INHFA, we see this as the biggest issue we face over the next 12 months, and we have launched a campaign that will be at full speed by spring 2017.