Éamon Ó Cuív (Galway West, Fianna Fail)
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877. To ask the Minister for Agriculture, Food and the Marine if farmers who are in receipt of payments under the farm early retirement scheme, and who have leased their farm and their entitlements under this scheme, will retain their entitlements after 2014; the basis on which they will be retained; the necessary steps to be taken by the farmer to retain their entitlements; and if he will make a statement on the matter. [13594/14]

Simon Coveney (Cork South Central, Fine Gael)
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Any farmer who was entitled to receive a direct payment in 2013 (Single Payment, Grassland Sheep Scheme, Burren Life Scheme, Beef Data Scheme) is automatically eligible to receive an allocation of entitlements under the Basic Payment Scheme in 2015.

Farmers who joined the Early Retirement Scheme undertook to cease farming definitively. Where such farmers have leased out their entire holding and all entitlements for a period which includes 2013, they consequently do not have an automatic ‘allocation right’. In most cases they will not be ‘active farmers’ in 2015.

As a consequence, these 100% lessors will neither be eligible to establish entitlements in their own right, nor can they enter into a PCC to transfer entitlements to the lessee. The value of such 100% leased entitlements would be lost to both lessor and lessee (but would remain in the overall fund for redistribution). This scenario also applies to those who have leased out a portion of their entitlements in 2013 but failed to draw down a payment on the entitlements they retain.

The value of such leased entitlements will be lost to both lessor and lessee unless the entitlements in question are transferred permanently by sale or gift before 15 May 2014 to a person who holds an allocation right, ideally the existing lessee. My Department is writing to all persons impacted by this scenario to advise them of their options.