Michael Ring (Mayo, Fine Gael)
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Question 650: To ask the Minister for Agriculture and Food the reason payment of premium forestry grants that was always in March of each year is now being delayed until April; and the reason therefor. [10918/05]

Mary Coughlan (Donegal South West, Fianna Fail)
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Payment of the annual forestry premiums is normally made around this time every year. Last year the premium run took place in early April. This year's payments will be a little later, due to the additional work which had to be carried out in order to fully integrate the forestry payment system with the agriculture system, following the transfer of responsibility for the forestry portfolio to my Department last year. This work involved the examination of client details on each and every file on which payment is made, the updating of such information as required and then the linking of each file into the Department of Agriculture payment system. This was a substantial challenge, scoped as a separate sub-project within the IFORIS project, and with its own dedicated team of personnel. Due to the additional work that had to be done this year my Department indicated to the forest owners that the premium run would not take place until the end of April 2005. However, I am pleased to say that the work has been completed ahead of schedule and I expect the first payments to be made before the end of this week.