Seán Sherlock (Cork East, Labour)
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Question 588: To ask the Minister for Agriculture, Fisheries and Food the changes he has made to cross-compliance penalty tolerances by SMR since their introduction; and if he will make a statement on the matter. [29876/10]

Brendan Smith (Cavan-Monaghan, Fianna Fail)
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Following on from discussions with the farming organisations in the context of the charter of rights for farmers in 2005, Ireland adopted a weighting system within the cross-compliance inspection regime whereby due account was taken of infringements of the cross-compliance requirements which were, on their own, inadvertent and minor in nature, and were capable of occurring in practical farming situations. In such circumstances a certain level of tolerance was applied while, at the same time, the farmer was notified of the infringement. Following a Commission review in 2007 on the operation of cross compliance, some legislative changes have been made which set rules for the non-imposition of sanctions for minor breaches of the cross compliance.

Under the new regime, where a tolerance is initially applied, the farmer must be told of the non-compliance. If the non-compliance is not immediately remedied, it must be remedied within a certain period of time, otherwise a penalty of a minimum 1% will apply and the normal rules of repetition will apply. Checks must be carried out to ascertain whether or not the non-compliance has been remedied. These checks can be of an administrative or other nature. Council and Commission Regulations are now in place implementing the new arrangements with effect from 1 January 2008.