Brian O'Shea (Waterford, Labour)
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Question 139: To ask the Minister for Agriculture and Food the provision she will make for an appropriate advance notification scheme for part-time farmers who might be subject to on-farm inspections at times when they are engaged in off farm work; and if she will make a statement on the matter. [3749/07]

Mary Coughlan (Donegal South West, Fianna Fail)
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The policy of my Department towards on-farm inspection has been to give advance notification of up to 48 hours in all cases. This policy of systematic pre-announcement of inspections was questioned by the European Commission in July 2006 and its unacceptability was conveyed to my Department in a formal communication in August. As a result, my Department was obliged to agree to a proportion of Single Payment Scheme inspections being carried out in 2006 without prior notification. Some 650 farms out of 130,000 involved in the Single Payment Scheme were subsequently selected for unannounced inspection. The balance of inspection cases, representing some 92% of the 7,514 farms selected for Single Payment Scheme/Disadvantaged Areas Scheme inspection in 2006, were all pre-notified to the farmer.

The EU regulations governing the Single Payment Scheme would allow my Department to give pre-notification of inspection in all cases where certain elements of cross-compliance are involved e.g. the Nitrates Regulations. However, my Department is committed, in the Charter of Rights for Farmers 2005-2007 to carrying out all Single Payment Scheme and Disadvantaged Area Scheme checks during a single farm visit in most cases. This then obliges my Department to respect the advance notice requirements applicable to the most stringent element of the inspection regime viz. maximum of 48 hours notice but with no advance notice in a proportion of cases.

My Department is also committed in the Charter of Rights to pursuing with the European Commission a strategy to deliver advance notification of 14 days for inspections. The matter has been raised with the Commission on a number of occasions since 2004, particularly in the context of the Irish situation where we are operating a fully decoupled and essentially area-dependent Single Payment Scheme. I have personally made the case again recently to Commissioner Fischer Boel and this issue will be a key point for Ireland in the CAP simplification initiative of the Commission which is now underway.

My Department believes that pre-notification of Single Payment Scheme/Disadvantaged Areas Scheme inspections fits in with the practicalities of Irish agriculture where increasingly, farmers are also engaged in off-farm employment. In a decoupled Single Payment Scheme system, the provision of advance notification of inspection to the farmer should not negatively impact on the effectiveness of the control. However, as the EU regulations stand, my Department is obliged to carry out a small proportion of inspections without prior notification and this is what was done in 2006. My Department is seeking authority to allow advance notification in all inspection cases for 2007 and I will continue to press this point in the CAP simplification process.