Michael Healy-Rae (Kerry South, Independent)
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91. To ask the Minister for Agriculture, Food and the Marine the position regarding entitlements in respect of a person (details supplied) in County Kerry; and if he will make a statement on the matter. [46553/14]

Simon Coveney (Cork South Central, Fine Gael)
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Under the Terms and Conditions of the Single Payment Scheme and other area based schemes an applicant, as well as meeting the Scheme criteria, is required to comply with EU regulatory requirements relating to Cross Compliance.

A report detailing findings of an inspection carried out by Kerry County Council on 12 February 2014 was referred to my Department’s Cross Compliance Unit for attention. This report detailed breaches relating to the cross compliance requirements under the Nitrates Regulations.

The breaches identified related to a lack of facilities to collect soiled water, slurry and silage effluent; soiled water seeping directly onto land and farm wastes being routed to an unlined Lagoon type facility leading to indirect discharge to ground water.

As similar breaches under the Nitrates Regulations had been identified within the previous three years, the regulatory provisions required that the rules on repetition be applied and this resulted in a final penalty of 60% being applied against the 2014 Direct Schemes payments.

The person named was notified of this decision on 13 June 2014. The person named has appealed this decision and this request is currently being examined. The person named will be notified of the outcome as soon as possible.

In the event that the person named is dissatisfied with the outcome of this review, the decision can be appealed to the independent Agriculture Appeals Office, within 3 months.