Martin Heydon (Kildare South, Fine Gael)
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I thank the Deputy for raising this issue. I know form-filling and all the rest is a constant source of frustration. I will put on the record of the House, as I have done previously, that I am a farmer. I come from a farming background. My wife and I still have an active farm in south Kildare. It is frustrating that this is happening.

Maybe I came come into this role of Minister of State at the Department of Agriculture, Food and the Marine with a farmer's view of red tape and bureaucracy. When we look at the amount of EU funding we are receiving, however, we have to be able as a country to account for that, as do other countries across Europe. If we are found in audits by the EU not to have administered it appropriately according to the schemes, we can be subject to very significant disallowances and fines. I have come to understand very quickly that there is a significant need here. Therefore, we do not look to develop or make things any more complex than they need to be. There is a requirement that we must stand over the administering of the EU money, however, which is significantly important to our farmers and to the rural communities in which they are based.

As Minister of State with responsibility for farm safety, I get the stresses and strains on farmers at this particular time of year. It is a very busy time on farms with all the different activity from calving to lambing. This is also true for the tillage sector with the price of inputs, the weather and all those different concerns like whether the fodder will last before farmers get out onto the grass and how early they can get that grass. Mixed in with all that is the paperwork and that causes a lot of stress and strain. Much of this paperwork is necessary across our daily lives, however. We try to keep the level of work to a minimum so as not to burden farmers. As I outlined, however, necessary paperwork is a requirement of many of the schemes and programmes.

One of the key performance indicators of my Department's information management and technology, IMT, statement of strategy is the number of services offered digitally, such as form-filling. These digital services will inter aliahave pre-filled customer details as a default for all new digital forms. They will, therefore, recognise that the farmer has been there before. That will take away the need to ask farmers for the same information many times over. There is much streamlining in our online systems as well.

Martin Heydon (Kildare South, Fine Gael)
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It will come up in the next one. I will answer it if I can. I answered a question earlier about when the Department had to introduce mandatory online form filling. Many people made the point that the average age of our farmers is 57 or higher. We have so many farmers in their 70s trying to navigate an IT system. There was huge concern that we would not be able to manage that. People underestimated the resilience and capabilities of farmers in conjunction with their advisers and family members. Great credit is also due to the officials in the Department.

In the response to an earlier question on the system, I outlined that it appeared certain farmers had not filled out the area of natural constraint, ANC, application properly. The Department went to some lengths to assist them. We wrote to them, we had pop-ups on-screen to say that the applicant was potentially making a mistake, and we also rang farmers. Following those phone calls, an extra 150 farmers amended their single farm payment application for that year to make sure they had it right. With that there are opportunities in the online system. Farmers have proven themselves adept at it. The recording of information in the system, and us being able to identify in real time where farmers are at, is a help in some ways.

Martin Heydon (Kildare South, Fine Gael)
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As I said, there is an opportunity in the online form filling element for farmers and for us. I will give the Deputy a very clear commitment here. We constantly review how our systems work. This will be a really challenging year. The first year of a new CAP scheme, with all of the new IT systems, is very challenging for us. If we see a trend of a significant number of farmers all making the same mistake, we will amend, fix and intervene. I assure the Deputy that we constantly review this. We want farmers to be able to access the funds to which they are entitled and so on.

I could do with a lot more time to discuss the nitrates directive, but I will make one point. Farmers talk to us about the 250 kg limit as being their starting point. It is not. Our starting point is a 170 kg limit. We are very lucky in this country to be one of four countries that has this derogation, which is the rule that means we can operate at that higher nitrates level. There are conditions with that and one of the main conditions is that we cannot have a decline in water quality. Our water quality in Ireland is good by European standards but the trend in certain areas is declining. We will lose our derogation. Other European Union countries would give their right arm for that derogation. We know how important it is to the 7,000 farmers who avail of it in this country, so we are doing everything to maintain it. We do not want to make it any more difficult for farmers than it needs to be but we must see an improvement in our water quality. That is a key part of the whole derogation.