Eamon Gilmore (Dún Laoghaire, Labour)
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Question 84: To ask the Minister for Agriculture, Fisheries and Food if she will lobby the European Commission to rescind the decision to pay REP scheme four retrospectively to participating farmers; and if she will make a statement on the matter. [13068/08]

Mary Coughlan (Donegal South West, Fianna Fail)
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The arrangements for REPS 4 are derived from a new Commission Regulation which reflects the Commission's objective of integrating and harmonising the operation of the various farm payment schemes — including the Single Payment Scheme, REPS and the Disadvantaged Areas Scheme. For REPS 4, this means that applications to join the Scheme must be submitted by 15 May each year. Payments will relate to the number of months in a year during which the farmer is in a REPS 4 contract, and they will be released in two phases of 75% and 25%.

The arrangements I announced recently emerged from intensive discussions between my officials and their counterparts in the Commission. In these discussions, my officials pointed out that the previous arrangements had worked well since REPS was first introduced in 1994 and had contributed to the success of the scheme, with nearly 60,000 farmers participating in REPS 2 and REPS 3 by the end of 2006.

The Commission were adamant, however, that the new Regulation must apply to REPS 4. The discussions therefore focused on how to apply the new arrangements in a way that mitigated as far as possible any inconvenience they would create for farmers. It was in this context that the Commission agreed to special transitional arrangements for farmers in REPS 2 finishing their contracts during 2008. As long as these farmers have submitted an application for REPS by the new closing date of 15 May this year, they can submit their farm plans after that date and still receive payment during the year. My officials have written to every farmer in this category to tell them what they need to do.

This was a significant concession by the Commission. If they had not agreed to these special transitional arrangements at a late stage in the discussions, farmers finishing their REPS 2 contracts this year would have had to get their farm plans submitted by 15 May or else wait until 2009 to join REPS 4. The Commission insisted however that the new Regulation must apply strictly to all other farmers joining REPS 4 in 2008, and to everyone joining the new Scheme from next year on.

Although payments will now come at different times of the year from those that farmers are used to, no farmer will lose out on his or her payments in REPS 4. Nevertheless I am aware that the 15 May deadline for applications, and the departure from the existing practice of paying farmers in full at an early point in each year of their REPS contracts, are significant changes. I believe the previous way of doing things was better, but we are constrained by the Regulations. I hope that planners, both within Teagasc and in the private sector, will do what they can to accommodate farmers who want to enter REPS 4 this year. I have asked my officials to make every effort to explain the new rules clearly both to farmers and to planners, and to be as flexible as possible in implementing them.

Finally I want to reiterate that there is no change to the rules governing REPS 2 and REPS 3. For the remainder of their time in these Schemes, farmers will continue to be paid in full at an early stage in each year of their contracts.