Brendan Smith (Cavan-Monaghan, Fianna Fail)
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509. To ask the Minister for Agriculture, Food and the Marine if all REPS 4 and AEOS payments due in 2014 will be paid out before the end of 2014; if he proposes to defer payments to 2015; if so, the level of payments to be deferred; and if he will make a statement on the matter. [34683/14]

Simon Coveney (Cork South Central, Fine Gael)
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Area-based schemes under the Rural Development Programme, 2007-13, are subject to EU Regulations which require detailed administrative checks on all applications, including cross checks with the Land Parcel Identification System, to be completed before payments can issue. These rigorous procedures, together with on-farm inspections, apply to a number of scheme payments including the Agri-environment Options Scheme (AEOS) and REPS and are necessary to ensure that applications meet the scheme conditions and cross-compliance requirements. In line with the governing Regulations, payments issue in two tranches, 75% payment and 25% payment. Following application of the various controls mentioned above, it is anticipated that a substantial number of 75% and 25 % payments will issue before the end of 2014 with the remainder issuing in early 2015.