Pat Breen (Clare, Fine Gael)
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155. To ask the Minister for Agriculture, Food and the Marine when payment will issue to a number of farmers (details supplied) in County Clare under the Burren Farming for Conservation Programme; and if he will make a statement on the matter. [17060/14]

Simon Coveney (Cork South Central, Fine Gael)
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Payment has issued this week under the Burren Farming for Conservation Programme to the person named and also to the vast majority of other applicants under this programme.

The legal deadline, under the governing EU Regulations, for making these payments is the end of June 2014. Since actions undertaken by the BFCP participants continued throughout 2013, it was not possible to carry out the required eligibility inspections, which must be carried out prior to payment, until 2014. The EU Regulations also provide that all of the eligibility inspections must be completed before payments can commence, which is now the case. These payments for 2013 totalling €986,000 support high environmental value farming in the Burren, whichis one of Ireland’s outstandinglandscapes and is known worldwide. These payments will bring the allocation to participating farmers by my Department over the four years of this measure to over €3.8 million.