John McGuinness (Carlow-Kilkenny, Fianna Fail)
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101. To ask the Minister for Agriculture, Food and the Marine if in the event of payments being made on land deemed not eligible for payment under the single farm payment the EU disallow re-imbursement on that land or if they also fine the paying State; and if he will make a statement on the matter. [39535/13]

Simon Coveney (Cork South Central, Fine Gael)
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The Deputy will be fully aware of the importance of payments made under the Single Payment Scheme, the Disadvantaged Areas Scheme and other Direct Payment Schemes to the annual income of Irish farmers. My Department is bound, under EU Regulations, to maintain the accuracy the Land Parcel Identification System (LPIS), which underpins the processing of applications under these Schemes as well as REPS and AEOS.

At the start of each year, my Department issues colour maps of all land parcels declared by farmers in the previous year together with a covering letter. In that letter, farmers are reminded to examine each map carefully and to identify and exclude from their application all ineligible features such as buildings, farmyards, scrub, roadways, forests, lakes etc. included in the land parcels. There is, therefore, an onus on all farmers to ensure that the area of land declared by them as eligible for payment under the Direct Payment Schemes is accurate. They are also given the means to do so by making the ortho-photos available to them on an annual basis. These requirements are also made clear in the Terms and Conditions of the Schemes, which accompanies the pre-printed application form issued to all farmers at the commencement of the application period each year. In view of the size and structure of farm enterprises in Ireland, farmers are fully aware of all of the non-eligible areas of their holdings.

In addition to any changes submitted by farmers, in order to insure the integrity of the LPIS, my Department continuously reviews the eligibility of lands claimed by farmers for the Single Payment Scheme and other Direct Payment Schemes.

In line with this position, all lands claimed under Direct Payment Schemes in respect of the 2009 – 2012 scheme years are currently subject to ongoing review for eligibility purposes. As a result of this phase of this review, any payments made to farmers in respect of claimed areas, which were found to be ineligible, must be reimbursed. In such circumstances farmers are advised they could either refund the over-payment directly to my Department or the overpayment could be recouped from their next payment(s) due from my Department.

Finally, I can confirm that in the event of the European Commission determining that EU monies have been paid on ineligible land, it would recover the relevant amount from the paying agency that made the payment. However, this would not be the case where that Member State took the appropriate measures to recoup the amounts involved from the farmers, who made the over-claims that led to the over-payments, and repaid these amounts to the Commission.