Jackie Cahill (Tipperary, Fianna Fail)
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530. To ask the Minister for Agriculture, Food and the Marine to outline the way in which appeals cases are allocated to appeals staff; if it is normal practice that five 100% fines from the Nenagh, County Tipperary office had one appeals officer deal with three of them; his views on whether this is unnecessary in view of the number of appeals staff available to deal with individual appeals; and if he will make a statement on the matter. [21541/17]

Michael Creed (Cork North West, Fine Gael)
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The procedure for allocating appeals is that appeals are allocated to Appeals Officers on a regional basis following receipt of the required documentation necessary to process the appeal. A region can include one or more counties. The regional allocation is rotated every three months. On occasion, for example if there is a large volume of appeals on hand for a region, some appeal cases might be assigned to Appeals Officers responsible for appeals received for a different region. The level of penalty is not a determining factor in assigning appeals to an Appeals Officer.

I am satisfied that Appeals Officers are independent in the performance of their functions and consider all of the facts before making a determination.