Charlie McConalogue (Donegal, Fianna Fail)
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1677. To ask the Minister for Agriculture, Food and the Marine the operational details for the yellow card system in place for farm inspections. [28448/17]

Michael Creed (Cork North West, Fine Gael)
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A new Penalty Regime and "Yellow Card" system was introduced in respect of land eligibility requirements as part of an overall suite of measures under the Simplification Process of the CAP. These provisions applied from the 2016 Scheme Year and are applicable to the Basic Payment Scheme (BPS), the Young Farmers Scheme (YFS), the Areas of Natural Constraints (ANC) Scheme and Areas of Specific Constraints (ASC) Islands Scheme, only. The provisions aim to simplify the process and reduce the penalty levels applied under these schemes.

The new penalty regime reduces the level of penalty to be applied in cases where area over-declarations greater than 3% or 2 hectares are determined. This provision applies to all relevant cases irrespective of how the over-declaration is determined. 

The "Yellow Card" provision applies to those cases where a determined over-declaration in area is greater than 3% or 2 hectares, but does not exceed 10%. For such cases the penalty will be further reduced by 50%, subject to specific criteria. 

The additional criteria attaching to the provision is that an applicant can only avail of the "Yellow Card" once per individual scheme and furthermore, where an applicant is found to have an area over-declaration resulting in a penalty in the following year, they will be required to pay-back the value of the 50% reduction applied in the previous year, in addition to the penalty being applied for the current year. There is also a requirement for inspections in the following year on those applicants who declare an area greater than the area determined in the previous year following an inspection. 

Under the Cross Compliance regime, there is a provision in the governing regulations that, where a breach of any of the requirements is deemed to be minor and remedial action is taken within a specified period, no monetary sanction will apply.