Liz McManus (Wicklow, Labour)
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Question 73: To ask the Minister for Agriculture, Fisheries and Food when all land will be digitised for the single farm payment scheme and disadvantaged area scheme; and if he will make a statement on the matter. [40633/10]

Brendan Smith (Cavan-Monaghan, Fianna Fail)
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Under the legislation governing the implementation of the Single Payment Scheme the Department must be informed of changes to land parcels details through the submission by farmers of maps. These are submitted as necessary by farmers where existing parcels are being altered or subdivided or where previously undeclared parcels are claimed. During the processing of the maps received the changes made by the applicants are re-digitised onto my Department's Land Parcel Identification System. That task is highly technical and must be carried out to a very high standard to preserve the integrity of the system

This year has proven to a particularly challenging one from the point of view of keeping the Land Parcel Identification System up to date. By the time the processing of the 2010 applications is completed, it is expected that we will have processed and digitised maps received from over 70,000 farmers. This compares with a figure of 30,000 for 2009 and an average of 22,000 maps in recent years. On average each farmer submitted two maps with their 2010 application forms. It is for this reason, despite the allocation of additional resources, that the digitising of the maps submitted is taking a longer period than in previous years. I envisage that, given the extent of the task, all of the required digitising will be completed in early 2011.