Charlie McConalogue (Donegal, Fianna Fail)
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207. To ask the Minister for Agriculture, Food and the Marine the number of farmers that have appealed the removal of their lands from the areas of natural constraint scheme in 2019, by county in tabular form. [7641/19]

Charlie McConalogue (Donegal, Fianna Fail)
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208. To ask the Minister for Agriculture, Food and the Marine if he is providing farmers that have appealed the removal of their lands from the areas of natural constraint scheme in 2019 with information on the data underpinning the removal of the relevant townlands; and the steps a farmer can take next to appeal the ruling. [7642/19]

Charlie McConalogue (Donegal, Fianna Fail)
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209. To ask the Minister for Agriculture, Food and the Marine if appeals to the removal of lands from the areas of natural constraint scheme in 2019 will be completed in time before 2019 payments are planned to issue. [7643/19]

Michael Creed (Cork North West, Fine Gael)
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I propose to take Questions Nos. 207 to 209, inclusive, together.

Further to the completion of the review of eligible lands under the Areas of Natural Constraints (ANC) scheme, which was required by EU regulation, my Department wrote to all impacted farmers advising of the status of their lands under the 2019 ANC scheme. These letters included a form to instigate an appeal. The appeals form is also available on www.agriculture.gov.ie. For any farmer who wishes to appeal the status of a particular townland under the 2019 ANC scheme, an independently chaired appeals process is available.

The first step in the appeal process is for a farmer to submit a form to my Department indicating an intention to appeal the status of a particular townland. Further to receipt of these notifications, my Department is providing detailed information to appellants in relation to the data underpinning the status of the townland in question in order that they can base any appeal to the independent Appeals Committee on full information. While timelines will be in a large part dictated by the volume of full appeals received, it is expected that the appeals process will be completed in advance of the commencement of payments under the 2019 ANC scheme.

To date my Department has received 1,263 notifications of appeal from farmers. It should be noted that appeals will be townland based, given the townland structure of the ANC scheme. The appeal notifications received represent 679 distinct townlands. The number of farmers' appeals by county is as follows: -