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

At the outset, I would like to clarify that there were no so-called clawback payments under the 2013 single farm payment scheme. In processing the applications under the single farm payment scheme and other direct aid schemes, my Department is legally obliged to adhere to the requirements set out in the EU regulations governing each of the schemes. It is not possible to deviate from the provisions of these schemes. If an applicant over-declared his or her land by including ineligible features or ineligible areas in the application form, the provisions of the regulations must be respected in the processing of each application and in the calculation of deductions and penalties. An audit team from the European Commission is coming to Ireland in the second week of next month, and will spend one week looking at how we are dealing with the issues we have discussed.

The following is the position regarding the number of review and appeal cases received by my Department to date. The number of applications for appeal received is 4,800. That is the appeals process within our Department. As part of the appeal, we send out an inspector to physically look at the land to make sure there is nothing awry, and the number of such review applications sent for ground verification is 523. The number of applications accepted, or the number of successful appeals, is 160. The number rejected to date is 340. The number of appeals received for the LPIS appeals committee, an independent committee chaired by Mr. Padraig Gibbons to give another outlet to farmers who are concerned at the results they got from the Department, is 15 thus far. These appeals figures are ongoing and will alter as more cases are processed.

The majority of farmers do not have an issue here, but for those who do, we will try to work with them through two appeals systems. If penalties are imposed and retrospective payments are to be made, we will work with farmers case by case to ensure we are acting reasonably with them. This is not an easy issue to resolve, and the idea that we refuse to do what we need to do will have a much more severe consequence for agriculture than doing what we are doing at the moment. In other words, Commission auditors will determine the amount of money that was spent that should not have been spent and they will fine the country accordingly, which will be a very big figure indeed.

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