Damien English (Meath, Fine Gael)
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Question 135: To ask the Minister for Agriculture and Food her plans for the allocation of entitlements under the national reserve; when she intends to issue the entitlements; and if she will make a statement on the matter. [33776/05]

Paul Connaughton Snr (Galway East, Fine Gael)
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Question 160: To ask the Minister for Agriculture and Food her views on the rules covering the allocation of the national reserve with the farming organisations; and if she will make a statement on the matter. [33774/05]

Mary Coughlan (Donegal South West, Fianna Fail)
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I propose to take Questions Nos. 135 and 160 together.

The position is that over the past year a number of meetings of the single payment advisory committee, comprising representatives of my Department, the farming organisations and Teagasc, were held to discuss the rules governing the allocation of entitlements from the national reserve. Two recent meetings of the committee assessed progress on processing the national reserve applications and discussed, in particular, what should constitute the "regional average value of entitlements".

Under the regulations governing the national reserve, allocations to farmers who are successful under certain categories must not have the effect of increasing their entitlements above the regional average value of entitlements. I am considering the various views expressed at the single payment advisory committee meetings and some further clarification may be required from the European Commission before taking a definitive decision on this matter.

Some 17,000 farmers submitted applications to the 2005 national reserve but when account is taken of the number of farmers who applied under two or more categories, about 23,000 files have to be processed. While good progress has been made in processing applications, more time is needed before deciding on the maximum value of entitlements to be made to successful applicants under certain categories. Crucially, some 20% of the applications received are still under query with the farmers concerned. I believe, therefore, that it is more prudent to concentrate for the time being on processing single payment scheme applications to the payment stage and to revert to allocating the national reserve early in 2006. With this in mind, processing of national reserve applications will continue over the coming weeks.