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

I thank the Senator for the opportunity to set the record straight on a number of matters. I would first like to outline to the House the background of the inspection requirements relating to the direct payment scheme and other area-based schemes.

In the context of the delivery of the direct payment scheme and rural development measures, my Department is required to carry out an annual round of inspections on a number of farms. These cover such issues as eligibility under the schemes and compliance with cross-compliance requirements as set down in EU legislation. The basis for such inspections is governed by EU legislation and there are certain minimum numbers and types of inspections that must take place annually. Eligibility inspections must be carried out on a minimum of 5% of beneficiaries. These inspections verify the eligibility of the land declared for the drawing down of payments and ensure that any ineligible land or features have not been not been included for aid purposes and that other scheme-specific eligibility criteria have been met.

My Department has made every effort to respond to concerns about the impact on farmers of on-farm inspections. Arising from this, 75% of land eligibility inspections are initially carried out without any farm visit as the information required is acquired using the technique of remote sensing via satellite imagery. In addition, the governing regulations allow for eligibility inspections under the various schemes to be combined. For example, cases selected for inspection under the basic payments scheme can also count towards the inspection requirement under greening, the young farmers scheme, etc., thereby limiting the overall number of such inspections required to be carried out.

The rate of inspection for cross-compliance is a minimum of 1% of beneficiaries regarding all statutory management requirements, SMRs, and good agricultural conditions, GAC, in terms of standards. However, 3% of farmers must be inspected under the bovine identification and registration, IDR, requirements and 3% of sheep or goat farmers must be inspected, covering 5% of the flock.

My Department endeavours to minimise the number of farm visits as much as possible by combining animal IDR inspections with land eligibility inspections where feasible. Rules regarding the advanced notification of inspections are clearly laid down in the governing EU regulations and must be adhered to by officials of my Department. The regulations allow the Department to give notice of land eligibility and cross-compliance inspections involving SMRS, other than those relating to food, feed and animal welfare. However, this notice must be strictly limited to the minimum period necessary and shall not exceed 14 days. For checks involving cattle and sheep identification and registration, the minimum advance notice is 48 hours.For SMRs dealing with feed, food and animal welfare, no advance notice may be given and these inspections must take place on an unannounced basis.

Following discussions with the farming organisations, as part of a review of the farmers' charter of rights, it has been agreed that where the purpose of the visit by the inspecting officer is a combined notice and non-notice inspection, this will be clearly explained by the inspecting officer to the farmer.

All no-notice inspections will be conducted separately from all notice inspections unless the farmer requests otherwise, which I think is the issue the Senator is raising. A written notice will be given to the farmer on arrival at the holding, and the inspector will inform and will agree with the farmer when he will return to complete the notice elements of the inspection. In other words, we are separating the two. We have had a long and detailed discussion with farming organisations on this issue. I was involved in much of those negotiations and to simply brush that off as fluffy language is-----