Pearse Doherty (Donegal South West, Sinn Fein)
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210. To ask the Minister for Agriculture, Food and the Marine if penalties will be imposed on farmers who have not been able to fulfil the criteria of various departmental schemes due to recent flooding; and if he will make a statement on the matter. [12728/14]

Simon Coveney (Cork South Central, Fine Gael)
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I can confirm that the cases of those farmers whose holdings have been adversely affected by recent storms are eligible for consideration under Force Majeure provisions and will not be subject to the imposition of deductions and penalties for any land declared, which was damaged during the recent storms and flooding. Such cases will be dealt with sympathetically, on their merits, on a case by case base under the 2014 Single Payment Scheme, Disadvantaged Areas Scheme and other Direct Aid Schemes.

On the broader issue, I wish to reassure those farmers, who are anxious that if they did not have sufficient hectares to match their Single Farm Payment entitlements in 2014 arising from lands lost to the sea, it will have no impact on the level of payment entitlements allocated to them in 2015 under the new CAP Regime. Those farmers should be aware, that in the context of CAP Reform, decisions which I have taken in recent weeks provide protection for the payments of farmers.

In the first instance, a decision was made to use 2013 eligible land – or 2015 if it is lower – for the calculation of the number of new payment entitlements. This means that the number of entitlements allocated to farmers should correspond to the number of eligible hectares on the holding. In addition, the total value of the new entitlements allocated to farmers in 2015 will be based on the total value of entitlements - rather than payments - owned by farmers in 2014, irrespective of whether or not they were paid under the 2014 Single Payment Scheme. Therefore, there is no reason whatsoever why such farmers cannot fully benefit from payments under the CAP Reform Regime from 2015 onwards.