Brendan Griffin (Kerry, Fine Gael)
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811. To ask the Minister for Agriculture, Food and the Marine if a decision has been made on an appeal relating to an ANC payment by a person (details supplied) in County Kerry; and if he will make a statement on the matter. [41379/20]

Charlie McConalogue (Donegal, Fianna Fail)
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In order to be eligible for the Areas of Natural Constraints (ANC) Scheme, farmers must apply for the scheme by completing the relevant section of the Basic Payment Scheme application form. With effect from the 2018 scheme year, all applications for both the Basic Payment Scheme and the Areas of Natural Constraints Scheme were required to be completed using the Department’s online application system at www.agfood.ie.

When completing the Basic Payment Scheme online application in 2018, individuals who wish to apply for the ANC scheme were requested to tick a box to confirm they wished to apply for the scheme. Where the applicant received payment under the ANC scheme in 2017, but did not tick the box to apply for the scheme in 2018, they were presented with a text box to advise that they had received payment under the scheme in 2017 but had not applied in 2018. They were then asked to confirm if they wished to apply for the scheme or to continue to submit the BPS application without continuing in the ANC scheme in 2018.

An application for participation in the 2017 ANC scheme was received from the person named on the 9th of May 2017 and payment under the 2017 scheme year issued to them on the 19th of September 2017.

An application for participation in the 2018 BPS scheme was received from the person named on the 29th April 2018. However, the person named did not submit an application for the ANC scheme at this time, despite the system generated warning that would have indicated to them that they had received payment under the scheme in 2017 and had not applied for the scheme in 2018.

Applications for participation in the 2019 and the 2020 BPS schemes were also received from the person named on the 8th of May 2019 and the 10th of May 2020, respectively. However, the person named did not tick to apply for the ANC scheme in either of those two years.

An appeal in relation to the non-application for the ANC scheme in the years 2018 to 2020 was received from the person named on the 6th of October 2020. Unfortunately, having reviewed the information provided in the appeal, the appeal was deemed unsuccessful by my Department and a letter advising of the outcome of the appeal issued to the person named. The letter advised the person named of their right to make a subsequent appeal to the Agriculture Appeals Office(AAO).

The Agriculture Appeals Office have confirmed that they recently received an appeal from the person named in relation to this matter and this appeal will be considered at the earliest opportunity.