Michelle Mulherin (Mayo, Fine Gael)
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529. To ask the Minister for Agriculture, Food and the Marine the reason for the delay in the rural environment protection scheme 2013 payment in respect of a person (details supplied) in County Mayo; if he will expedite the processing of the application and issue the payment; and if he will make a statement on the matter. [21346/14]

Simon Coveney (Cork South Central, Fine Gael)
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The person named commenced REPS 4 in January 2010 and received payments for the first three years of their contract. REPS 4 is a measure under the 2007-13 Rural Development Programme and is subject to EU Regulations which require detailed administrative checks on all applications to be completed before any payments can issue. It is a scheme requirement that all REPS contract lands are declared annually in the Single Payment Scheme (SPS). Five commonage parcels were not included in the 2013 SPS declaration of the person named, and therefore these lands could not be considered for payment under REPS in 2013. An amendment to include these commonage parcels for SPS was submitted to my Department in March 2014 which will make it possible to include them for payment under REPS for 2014. The 2013 payment remains unchanged and my officials are now moving to finalise this and issue payment to the person named.