Mary Coughlan (Donegal South West, Fianna Fail)

Cross-compliance is an integral part of the direct payment regime following the introduction of the CAP mid-term review changes in 2005. With the extension of cross-compliance to a number of other scheme areas from this year, including the disadvantaged areas scheme and REPS, the delivery of annual payments to farmers of the order of €1.9 billion is now covered by the requirements of cross-compliance. This involves two key elements. First, a requirement for farmers to comply with 18 statutory management requirements, SMRs, set down in EU legislation on the environment, food safety, animal health and welfare and plant health. Second, a requirement to maintain the farm in good agricultural and environmental condition, GAEC.

The rate of on-farm inspection required for cross-compliance is 1% of those farmers to whom the statutory management requirements or GAEC apply. However, at least 5% of producers must be inspected under the bovine animal identification and registration requirements, as this level is prescribed under the new regulations.

My Department has published two information booklets on cross-compliance, which were issued to all farmers in early 2005 and also in August 2006. These guides have detailed the cross-compliance requirements under various EU regulations, as well as giving information on inspection controls on farms. Information on cross-compliance was also provided by my Department at various single payment scheme meetings with farmers.

In consultation with farming organisations in the context of the charter of rights for farmers, my Department has adopted a weighting system within the cross-compliance inspection regime whereby due account is taken of infringements of the cross-compliance requirements which are, on their own, inadvertent and minor in nature, do not result from negligence of the farmer and are capable of occurring in practical farming situations. In such circumstances, a certain level of tolerance is applied while, at the same time, the farmer is notified of the infringement. The system that has been developed also ensures that any penalties are applied in a standardised fashion throughout the country. It should be noted that while 1,389 farmers were subject to cross-compliance penalties under the 2006 single payment scheme, a further 977 farmers, while technically in breach of the requirements, did not suffer any penalty because of the tolerance regime applied by my Department. Breaches of cross-compliance in 2006 resulted in some €706,000 being withheld from farmers by way of penalties representing 0.05% of Ireland's national ceiling of €1.3 billion.

The vast bulk of penalties applied were for breaches of rules on the identification and registration of bovine animals — for example, tagging and registration of births, movements and deaths.

Further consultations will now take place with the farming organisations on arrangements for inspections under the new SMRs that have come on stream for 2007. I am committed to ensuring the maximum level of integration of inspections across all areas, including inspections under the disadvantaged areas scheme. On this basis, the overall number of annual inspections under the single payment scheme and the disadvantaged areas scheme is unlikely to exceed 8,000. This is a significant reduction from the 18,000 inspections annually under the old coupled regime.

The policy of my Department towards on-farm inspections has been to give advance notification of up to 48 hours. However, this was unacceptable to the European Commission and my Department was obliged to perform a number of inspections without prior notification in 2006. The vast bulk of inspections — some 92% of the total farms selected for single payment scheme/ disadvantaged areas scheme inspection in 2006 — were all pre-notified to the farmer.

Additional information not given on the floor of the House.

EU regulations governing the single payment scheme would allow my Department to give pre-notification of inspection in all cases where certain elements of cross-compliance are involved, for example, the nitrates regulations. However, my Department is committed, in the Charter of Rights for Farmers 2005-07, to carrying out all single payment scheme and disadvantaged area scheme checks during one single farm visit in most cases. This obliges my Department to respect the advance notice requirements applicable to the most stringent element of the inspection regime, namely, a maximum of 48 hours notice but with no advance notice in a proportion of cases.

My Department is in regular contact with the European Commission with a view to simplification of single payment scheme requirements with particular reference to advance notice of inspections and tolerances. The Commission's initiative on simplification of the CAP and the review of cross-compliance which is under way provides the opportunity for a fresh look at cross-compliance and other single payment scheme issues. I am pressing for this, both in direct contact with Commissioner Fischer Boel and the President of the Council, Minister Seehofer. I raised the matter at the Council on Monday of last week where several member states had similar problems to ours. It is not surprising then that simplification of the CAP and the cross-compliance regime in particular are core issues for the current German EU Presidency.

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