Simon Coveney (Cork South Central, Fine Gael) | Oireachtas source

That may be so, but it is because we are in the middle of a correction period. Other countries in the EU that are far bigger than Ireland are unable to do what we are doing. Since the middle of the summer, we have reassessed practically every one of the hundreds of thousands of land parcels in this country. I regard the judgment that has been made of the amount of land that is potentially ineligible as pretty accurate. We have put systems in place to allow farmers to submit appeals if they feel the measurements are inaccurate. I would say the accuracy of our system is pretty good, by and large. The current reform process, which essentially involves a correction of the inaccuracies of the last system, is difficult for farmers who are seeing some of their lands deemed ineligible. By the time the process has been fully corrected, within the next six months or so, Ireland will be one of a few countries in the EU to have done that. Significant disallowances and fines, which would be multiples of the value of the correction figure we are now going to deliver, will be avoided as a result.

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