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

I thank the Deputy for raising this issue. A number of farmers, particularly in the Deputy's county, are concerned about it. We have a problem we need to deal with. Since mid-summer, there has been a change to the way in which mapping is done technically. It allows us to be much more accurate in photographing land parcels across the country. As a consequence of this and the pressure the European Commission is under from external auditors, the Commission is demanding that every country in Europe assess whether payments have been drawn down on land parcels that have been ineligible. Unlike many other countries, Ireland has gone through an extraordinarily detailed process of trying to assess every single land parcel in the country so as to make a judgment on what areas are ineligible for payments. Obviously, we offer farmers an appeals system to test that. We are doing so because we are required to. The alternative is that the Commission would make an assessment of ineligible land in Ireland, multiply its figure probably by five and apply a fine or what is called a disallowance, for which every farmer would have to pay substantially. I cannot and will not allow that.

We have the capacity technologically to proceed accurately. I have no intention of penalising farmers but simply of asking them not to accept payments on land deemed ineligible in 2013. In some limited cases, we have asked farmers to return payments made over the past four years on ineligible land. That is how we minimise the exposure of Irish farming as a whole to penalties that the European Commission would otherwise supply. In case the Deputy thinks this is a bluff, he should consider the penalties that have applied to other countries. In France recently, there was a penalty of €246 million. I am open to correction on that. The United Kingdom and Italy have also received penalties, despite their economic muscle in the European Union. We are trying to minimise the exposure of farmers and we will work with farmers who have a problem to make sure we can put repayment schedules in place for them.

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