Michael Colreavy (Sligo-North Leitrim, Sinn Fein)
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248. To ask the Minister for Agriculture, Food and the Marine if there is a delay in work being carried out by a private mapping company that his Department has assigned to do its work. [44283/14]

Simon Coveney (Cork South Central, Fine Gael)
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EU Regulations governing the administration of the Single Farm Payment, Disadvantaged Areas’ Schemes, and other area based schemes, require that full and comprehensive administrative eligibility checks, including in some cases either Ground or Remote Sensing (satellite) inspections, be completed before any payments issue.

Eligibility checks are required to ensure that the actual area claimed in the application form corresponds to the area farmed by the applicant, that there are no dual claims of land and that ineligible land or features are not included for aid purposes. Where ineligible land or features are identified as a result of any of the eligibility checks, i.e. administrative or Ground/Remote Sensing inspections, these areas must be mapped on the Land Parcel Identification System.

In addition, where applicants under these schemes submit details of amendments to land being declared, either to add additional land or to exclude ineligible land or features, my Department must process these amendments on the Land Parcel Identification System.

The processing of both applicants' requests for amendments and the outcome of the administrative and inspections checks ensures that the Land Parcel Identification System, underpinning the direct aid payments worth in excess of €1.5bn annually, is accurately maintained. In addition, the eligibility checks are required to protect the annual drawdown of the EU funds and to avoid disallowances.

Both companies involved in the updating of the Land Parcel Identification System continue on a daily basis to process cases to finalisation. I can assure the Deputy that there are no undue delays in the processing of this work by either of the companies involved.