Seymour Crawford (Cavan-Monaghan, Fine Gael)
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Question 710: To ask the Minister for Agriculture, Fisheries and Food the number of farmers who are still owed REP scheme four on a county basis; his views on the fact that some of these farm families are under severe cash flow pressure; if he will provide the necessary extra personnel in areas in which there are undue delays; and if he will make a statement on the matter. [12919/10]

Brendan Smith (Cavan-Monaghan, Fianna Fail)
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Out of 28,842 farmers due payments in REPS 4, 19,951 had been paid in full as of 22 March 2010. Due to industrial action by staff in my Department, I am not in a position to provide a breakdown by county of the cases still outstanding.

To meet the requirements of EU regulations, applications for REPS payments have to go through an exhaustive series of administrative checks before payment can be released. In a significant number of cases, those checks raised issues and queries which required further detailed examination. Department staff are working to resolve these as quickly as possible. Many of these cases will, however, require the applicants' planners to amend the farm plans that were submitted originally. The persons concerned have been made aware of the position and the applications will be further processed without delay on receipt of amended plans.

In a small number of local offices, the processing of payments has been delayed by staffing issues arising from the moratorium on recruitment and promotions in the public service and the Department is attempting to resolve these difficulties. My objective is to ensure that all outstanding claims are processed to payment stage as quickly as possible.