Denis Naughten (Longford-Roscommon, Fine Gael)
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Question 331: To ask the Minister for Agriculture and Food her plans for cross-compliance under the single farm payment; and if she will make a statement on the matter. [14249/05]

Mary Coughlan (Donegal South West, Fianna Fail)
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Under the new single payment scheme, farmers receiving direct aid are required to respect the various statutory management requirements set down in EU legislation on the environment, food safety, animal health, and welfare, and plant health and to maintain the farm in good agricultural and environmental condition, GAEC. There will also be an obligation on the member state to ensure that there is no significant reduction in the amount of land under permanent pasture by reference to the total area under permanent pasture in 2003. These requirements are termed "cross compliance".

The EU directives and regulations referred to in cross compliance are in place for many years. Producers are generally familiar with them and are complying with the standards set in implementing them in Ireland.

The Department prepared a consultative document on cross compliance in October, 2004 and invited views from interested organisations. Department officials met with the main farming organisations in December to discuss their submissions and these discussions have continued more recently in the context of the review of the protocol on direct payments.

An information booklet on cross compliance has been issued to all farmers and sets out its principle features both in terms of the standards that must be met by farmers and the control arrangements that will be necessary. To coincide with the issue of the booklet, a series of countrywide farmer information meetings organised by my Department in conjunction with Teagasc, took place in early April. These meetings focused not only on cross compliance but also addressed the various other issues associated with the introduction of the single payment scheme.

In implementing the single payment scheme, I am aiming to minimise the number of inspection visits and to move towards a situation where, in most cases, all eligibility and cross compliance checks will be carried out during a single farm visit. It is envisaged that the 22,000 or so inspections, which were carried out under the old regime, will be significantly reduced to some 10,000 under the single payment scheme. This approach should minimise the level of inconvenience to farmers. However, in certain instances more than one inspection of a holding may be unavoidable.