Brendan Howlin (Wexford, Labour)
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Question 145: To ask the Minister for Agriculture and Food the total number of applications received by 16 May 2005 deadline under the new single payment scheme; the progress made with regard to processing the applications; and if she will make a statement on the matter. [26453/05]

Mary Coughlan (Donegal South West, Fianna Fail)
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By the closing date of 16 May 2005 for the single payment scheme, my Department had received almost 149,000 applications.

It will be appreciated that as all farmers who wished to activate their entitlements and-or claim payment under the scheme were obliged to submit an application form, the number of forms submitted includes an element of double-counting. For example, where a farmer who had established entitlements during the reference years had subsequently transferred those entitlements, both the transferor and the transferee were obliged to submit application forms. I am very satisfied with the progress being made in processing these application forms, particularly given the complexity of the new scheme and the fact that, at the same time, staff have had to process the old animal-based schemes to their conclusion.

An indication of progress made in the processing of single payment scheme applications can be gauged from the high level of disadvantaged area scheme, DAS, applicants already paid under the 2005 scheme given that the DAS application form was incorporated into the single payment scheme applications form. Some 85% of DAS applicants have been paid in the past week, a figure that compares favourably with previous years. The first date on which payments may be made under the single payment scheme is 1 December 2005.