Brendan Smith (Cavan-Monaghan, Fianna Fail)

The details requested are contained in a tabular statement which will be circulated to Members. Under EU regulations, the Department is required to carry out controls each year on 5% of participants in REPS. These controls involve a full check of the farm plan as well as an on-farm inspection. Where farmers are found to be in breach of their undertakings, a penalty must be imposed. The penalties are set out in the scheme documentation. A farmer on whom a penalty is imposed has the right to appeal it locally in the first instance. If he is not satisfied with the outcome, he can appeal further to the Agriculture Appeals Office, and ultimately to the Ombudsman.

The financial value of penalties imposed since REPS began in 1994 is less than 1% of the total paid over that period to farmers, which now stands at more than €2 billion. This indicates that the penalty regime is reasonable and is applied sensibly, and also indicates the generally high level of compliance among farmers.

REPS has been one of the most successful schemes operated by the Department. It has delivered multiple benefits to the environment in terms of water quality, biodiversity, conservation and landscape enhancement. It has also brought welcome income benefits to farmers, with more than €342 million paid out to REPS participants last year, which was the highest level in any year since the scheme began. Payments due to REPS farmers this year will continue at that high level. Farmers will continue in REPS right up to the end of 2014. By the time the scheme finally comes to an end, payments to farmers will have exceeded €3 billion.

On 30 March this year, I launched a new agri-environment scheme using EU funding secured from modulation and the European Economic Recovery Package. A substantial top-up from the national Exchequer will allow for up to 10,000 farmers to be admitted to the new scheme at a rate of up to €5,000 a year for five years. The scheme is designed to make a positive contribution to the priorities of biodiversity, water quality and climate change. In those respects I am confident that it will build on the success of REPS and that it will be widely attractive to farmers. The number of individual penalties imposed per county will be circulated.

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