Trevor Sargent (Dublin North, Green Party)

Ar dtús, ba mhaith liom bhíochas a gabháil leis an Teachta Calleary agus an Teachta Ring as an ceist tabhachtact seo a ardú ar son mhuintir Mhaigh Eo.

REPS has been one of the most successful schemes operated by my Department since it was launched in 1994. It has brought more than €2 billion in payments to Irish farmers. Last year, farmers in REPS received over €313 million in payments. The numbers in the scheme, including applicants for REPS 4 who are being processed at present, stand at over 60,000.

Farmers in Mayo have received more than €311 million in REPS since 1994, and their payments in 2008 came to €31.7 million. I know a number of these farmers around Ballyhaunis, Ballinrobe, Achill, Westport, Erris and Caisleán an Bharraigh. REPS has always been about much more than money, as Deputy Ring stated. It has delivered benefits to the environment, water quality, biodiversity and the landscape. Farmers have welcomed the opportunity it gave them to farm in a more environmentally sensitive way and to preserve habitats and landscape features that might otherwise have fallen victim to intensification.

In the past two years, since the nitrates derogation allowed us to open the scheme to the highly-stocked dairy sector, farmers who would not have considered REPS before are now showing interest and indeed in many cases have made their applications. REPS is a complex scheme. Currently, a participant in REPS must include all of his or her land in the scheme and must commit to 11 basic measures and at least two biodiversity options. If Natura land is involved there may be other obligations. This set of undertakings, negotiated with the European Commission, is the basis for payment.

In recent years, the European Commission and the Court of Auditors have taken an increasingly critical approach in their scrutiny of farm payment schemes, not just in Ireland but in other member states. Agri-environment measures like REPS are being very closely audited since a negative report by the Court of Auditors in 2006, which found that huge amounts of EU money were being spent on schemes whose outcomes were difficult or even impossible to measure.

We had two audit visits on REPS last year; one by the Court of Auditors and one by the European Commission. Both raised very serious questions about our procedures for examining applications for REPS. It was evident that we had to make fundamental changes in the way we dealt with applications. It became necessary, therefore, for the Department to scrutinise every REPS application and plan in the greatest detail. We had to bring in an entirely new system last year for processing REPS 4 applications. I am well aware that this has meant that farmers have had to wait much longer than expected for their first REPS 4 payments. Indeed, I know that up to half of those who applied in 2008 are still waiting. I would not suggest for one moment that this is a satisfactory situation. It is one that we hope not to find ourselves in again.

There are a number of reasons why the processing of applications has taken so long. The first thing we had to do was develop a computer system for screening plans that had been prepared on eREPS, the electronic planning system approved and funded by the Department. There are no safe short cuts in developing computer systems and it took several months to get this one to an acceptable level. Then the non-eREPS plans had to be screened manually, at a time when the staff who had to do this work were also heavily involved in the farm waste management scheme. Finally, all the plans had to be cross-checked against the LPIS system and checked to confirm that they included the necessary biodiversity options. These last two checks were computerised as well. At that point, which we reached at the end of January, we were finally able to start making payments on plans about which none of the checks had raised queries.

However, fewer than 1,400 plans out of more than 12,000 came through that initial set of screening checks with no queries. The remainder had to be checked manually. Nearly 5,000 of these files have since been processed. In most of those the queries have been fully resolved, though a number have had small reductions applied to the payments because of some deficiency in the plan.

Department staff are making every effort to get the remaining cases processed as soon as possible. There are some plans that are actually ineligible and it is important for the farmers in these cases that a valid application is with the Department by 15 May. Our staff are doing all they can to identify these problem cases but they cannot do everything. The 2009 applications are already arriving in big numbers. Last year, over 7,000 applications came in between 1 April and 15 May. It is too much to expect that Department staff can identify every application with a problem in time for the planner to fix it by 15 May. But nothing in any plan can be put right after that date. That possibility simply does not exist under the regulations we now have to live with. That is why every planner needs to be satisfied that every plan he or she prepares is fully in keeping with the terms and conditions of REPS and the obligations of cross-compliance.

There are particular factors operating in County Mayo which are making the processing of applications somewhat slower than in other counties. There is a large amount of designated Natura land in the county and Natura land qualifies for a higher rate of payment in REPS. Reconciling the Natura areas shown in many REPS plans with the Department's land parcel identification system is not proving straightforward. There is no reason to believe that payments to the farmers concerned will be reduced because of this issue, but to meet our audit requirements it has to be resolved in each case. Department staff are in the process of informing farmers about the situation so that they can get their planners to make any necessary changes to the plans, and this will continue in the coming weeks.

I hope this will be recognised and that it will make a difference that my Department has assigned extra staff to the Mayo offices to help with the exercise. Farmers have been very patient in waiting for their REPS payments this year, especially at a time when cash flow is critical to so many people. I ask for their continued patience while the remaining applications are processed and I ask them to keep their faith in REPS. While it must continue to evolve, to meet changing priorities and to reflect changing circumstances, I am confident that agri-environment will be an important part of EU rural development policy for years to come.

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