Michael Ring (Mayo, Fine Gael)
Link to this: Individually | In context

Question 258: To ask the Minister for Agriculture and Food if she will review the cross compliance farm inspection checklist in order that it is more reasonable and takes account of practical farming conditions and eliminates inspection duplication; and if she will make a statement on the matter. [9393/07]

Mary Coughlan (Donegal South West, Fianna Fail)
Link to this: Individually | In context

The position is that under the Charter of Rights for Farmers, my Department is committed to ensuring the maximum level of integration of inspections across all areas including inspections under the Single Farm Payment Scheme, the Disadvantaged Areas Scheme and the Rural Environment Protection Scheme. This integration means that control checks are carried out in relation to eligibility of land declared, identification and registration of animals on the holding, and compliance with the other 18 Statutory Management Requirements (SMRs) under cross-compliance in one farm visit. On this basis, the overall number of annual inspections associated with the Single Farm Payment Scheme is unlikely to exceed 8,000. This is a very significant reduction from the 18,000 inspections annually under the old coupled regime.

My Department is in regular contact with the European Commission with a view to simplification of Single Payment Scheme requirements with particular reference to the arrangements for cross-compliance inspections. In this connection the European Commission is currently undertaking a full review of the cross-compliance regime and the results of that review will be considered by the Council of Ministers during April. I have personally met with my German and French counterparts with a view to emphasising the importance of achieving progress on the simplification issue during the German presidency. In tandem with this my Department is carrying out a full review of the inspection arrangements and checklists for the Single Payment Scheme with a view to simplification of the arrangements (including paperwork) where possible while, at the same time, ensuring compliance with the regulatory requirements. The review of the inspection report forms together with the outcome of the Commission's review of the cross-compliance arrangements generally, will be fully discussed with the farming organisations before the inspections under the 2007 regime get underway.

Insofar as the Department's inspection checklist on cross compliance is concerned this is an internal checklist used by my Department officials for the 2006 inspections which was made available to the farming organisations and the farmers being inspected. It is also available on my Department's website www.agriculture.ie. It was not, or ever intended as a document to be completed by farmers but as an internal record of the check carried out.