Charlie McConalogue (Donegal, Fianna Fail)
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163. To ask the Minister for Agriculture, Food and the Marine his views on the proposal by an organisation (details supplied) regarding the sheep welfare scheme. [39351/18]

Michael Creed (Cork North West, Fine Gael)
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The EU Regulations governing payments under the Sheep Welfare Scheme state that payments may be made from 1st December. The Regulation also allows for advance payments to be made in advance of this where all administrative checks have been completed.

Under the Sheep Welfare Scheme advance payments commenced in Year 1 in November once administrative checks were completed. The balancing payment could then only be made when the range of further validation checks were completed. Given the structure of the Scheme and the timing of the scheme actions to be carried out by farmers, these validation checks on actions cannot be finalised until later in the Scheme year, and thus the balancing payment is required by regulation to issue at a later date.