Frank Feighan (Roscommon-South Leitrim, Fine Gael)
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275. To ask the Minister for Arts, Heritage and the Gaeltacht the amount that has been paid out to date under the cessation of turf cutting compensation scheme. [34932/14]

Frank Feighan (Roscommon-South Leitrim, Fine Gael)
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276. To ask the Minister for Arts, Heritage and the Gaeltacht the amount that has been paid out to date to County Roscommon turfcutters under the cessation of turf cutting compensation scheme. [34933/14]

Frank Feighan (Roscommon-South Leitrim, Fine Gael)
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277. To ask the Minister for Arts, Heritage and the Gaeltacht the amount that has been paid out to date to County Galway turfcutters under the cessation of turf cutting compensation scheme. [34934/14]

Frank Feighan (Roscommon-South Leitrim, Fine Gael)
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278. To ask the Minister for Arts, Heritage and the Gaeltacht the number of persons that are affected by the cessation of turf cutting on the 53 raised bog Special Areas of Conservation. [34935/14]

Heather Humphreys (Cavan-Monaghan, Fine Gael)
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I propose to take Questions Nos. 275 to 278, inclusive, together

Some 3,000 applications for compensation under the cessation of turf cutting compensation scheme for raised bog special areas of conservation have been received and acknowledged by my Department. A total of 6,081 payments and 528 deliveries of turf have been made in respect of the applications received. In addition, 1,184 once-off incentive payments of €500 have been made to applicants who have signed and returned legal agreements under the scheme to my Department.

Details of the expenditure under the scheme to date, grouped by county, are set out in Table 1 SACs below. The total expenditure amounts to over €10.6 million. This expenditure is comprised of amounts paid in respect of annual payments, turf deliveries and once-off incentive payments. A number of raised bog special areas of conservation straddle more than one county and it is not possible to give a single figure per county where this arises.

The cessation of turf cutting compensation scheme has been extended to land owners and turbary right holders affected by the restrictions on turf cutting in raised bog natural heritage areas. To date,125 applications have been received and 32 payments have been made at a cost of over €48,000 to applicants from these sites. Details of the expenditure under the scheme to date for these sites, grouped by county, are set out in Table 2 NHAs below .

My Department estimates that in the region of 2,000 individual applicants have received payments to date under the cessation of turf cutting compensation scheme for raised bog special areas of conservation. The closing date for the receipt of applications generally has passed for raised bog special area of conservation sites. However, my Department will continue to accept late applications under the scheme for the time being.

Table 1 SACs