Jackie Cahill (Tipperary, Fianna Fail)
Link to this: Individually | In context | Oireachtas source

220. To ask the Minister for Agriculture, Food and the Marine the number of farmers that have not received their SFP and ANC payments for 2018, by county in tabular form; and if he will make a statement on the matter. [49777/18]

Michael Creed (Cork North West, Fine Gael)
Link to this: Individually | In context | Oireachtas source

Under the 2018 Areas of Natural Constraints (ANC) Scheme some 100,828 applicants hold eligible designated lands. The ANC Scheme is subject to a range of eligibility and compliance criteria such as .scheme each year having successfully fulfilled all scheme requirements. To date some 89,566 applicants have been paid a total of €215.7m under the 2018 ANC Scheme.

It is not possible, at this point, to accurately ascertain the number of applicants in particular counties who will be paid under the scheme. In particular, this is due to the fact that individual farmers who have yet to meet their stocking density requirements may or may not do so by the end of the year depending on their farming practice/decisions.

Under the 2018 Basic Payment Scheme over 119,508 farmers have now been paid a total of more than €786m, and preparations are now well underway for the issuing on balancing payments from the start of December.

The breakdown of BPS applications that are still being processed is given in the table below. It is important to note that these incomplete cases can be under query for a variety of reasons, such as over-claims, dual claims, queries on entitlements or inspected cases that require follow-up. In that regard I would remind farmers who have been contacted by the Department with queries to reply as quickly as possible so that the processing of their applications can be completed. Regular pay runs will continue and the focus is on getting payments out as promptly as possible.