Niamh Smyth (Cavan-Monaghan, Fianna Fail)
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428. To ask the Minister for Agriculture, Food and the Marine his plans for initiatives for rural farmers to have access to better technology and broadband. [53601/18]

Michael Creed (Cork North West, Fine Gael)
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The provision of rural broadband is a matter for my colleague the Minister for Communications, Climate Action and Environment.

However, my Department makes extensive use of ICT systems and technology to provide the best possible services to its customers and to allow farmers interact with it in the easiest way possible.

My Department and its Information Management and Technology (IMT) Division has a very good reputation in the delivery of schemes with ICT systems. For instance, since 2015 my Department has delivered almost all of its CAP reform schemes online with end to end automated processing. This has allowed Ireland to be among the first in Europe to launch schemes and to make payments to farmers at the earliest possible opportunity. Since 2015 Ireland has been the second fastest country to draw down and disperse funds to the rural community from the CAP schemes.

In line with my Department's Statement of Strategy 2016-2019 and IMT Statement of Strategy 2017-2020 my Department is constantly seeking to make the best use of new and emerging technologies. My Department previously launched a mobile phone app that allowed farmers to get up to date details of the prices being paid by different Meat Processors for the different classifications of carcases.

In addition my Department is at an advanced stage of development to provide a calf birth registration application that will be accessible on mobile devices such as smartphones and tablets. This will allow farmers to register calf birth details directly with the Department’s Animal Identification and Movement (AIM) system in remote locations such as farm sheds using the their smart mobile phone. This app will help to minimise errors in calf birth details submitted and avoid duplication of records on the farm. An enhancement to allow farmers process farm to farm movements for cattle will be included in a subsequent phase which will be available later in 2019. Further enhancements will be released on an on-going basis.

As part of its on-going commitment to providing an efficient and effective customer service to its clients, my Department is seeking to develop a new customer engagement contact system. This new contact centre will build on the current telephony system with the creation of a new single point of contact for each customer. The contact centre will be further enhanced by the provision of a single view of each customer, thereby facilitating a more enhanced and holistic approach to customer interactions.

Under EU regulations, 2018 was the first year that all applications for the Basic Payment Scheme (BPS) had to be submitted online. I was aware that for some people, this was the first year that they engaged with the online applications process and they may have found this process daunting. To help farmers to submit their applications online in 2018, I ensured that the BPS application facility was open over a month earlier than in 2017. This provided more time for farmers to familiarise themselves with the online application facility and to submit their applications. My Department contacted these farmers at an early date advising them of the requirement to submit online in 2018. A number of additional supports as follows were also put in place:

- How-to booklets

- How-to videos

- Lo-call telephone support

- Targeted letters, texts and phone calls

- 1-to-1 Clinics

These supports ensured that all farmers were able to access these important payments.