Michael Moynihan (Cork North West, Fianna Fail)
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124. To ask the Minister for Agriculture, Food and the Marine the percentage of basic payments that have been issued to farmers to date in 2022; and if he will make a statement on the matter. [53126/22]

Charlie McConalogue (Donegal, Fianna Fail)
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The Basic Payment Scheme and related area-based scheme opened for applications in February 2022. 128,360 applications were received by 16th May deadline, which is in line with the number of applications in previous years. Applications submitted within amendment and late application deadlines brought the total number of applications submitted for 2022 to 128,747. However, the number of eligible applications received was 120,662.

To be eligible for the BPS, applicants must have a Payment Entitlement and an eligible hectare of agriculture area to accompany each Payment Entitlement. The Greening payment is a top-up of the BPS and amounts to approximately 44% of the total value of entitlements activated.

Advance payments commenced on 17th October at a rate of 70%, which is an increase on the 50% normally allowed under EU regulation. 17th October was the first working day that advance payments could be paid, which demonstrates my Department’s commitment to issue scheme payments as quickly as possible. To date 114,929 applicants have been paid over €740m. As a result, over 95% of all eligible applications have received an advance payment.

The Department will continue to process, as a matter of urgency, all remaining cases for payment as they meet scheme criteria.