Farmers landed with payment deductions

EAST Clare farmers got a nasty shock in the post over the last week as they received penalties ranging from a few hundred to a few thousand euro for alleged scrubland overpayments.

 

The Department of Agriculture has come under fire over the alleged lack of notice for farmers, who have deductions of up to 20% under the Single Farm Payment Scheme.

Former Mayor of Clare, Pat Hayes, who has received numerous representations, estimates up to 50 farmers have been deducted payments ranging from a few hundred to a few thousand euro.

The Fianna Fáil councillor admitted he was shocked to learn that farmers didn’t realise penalties would be applied before they could exercise the option of an appeal. He also highlighted the scale of the penalties being applied to small farmers in rural areas where land, in a lot of cases, is poor.

If a farmer is found to have over-claimed by 3%, a 6% penalty is applied and if it goes up to 8% in a large claim, the penalty can be as high as 16%. Farmers have 14 days to lodge an appeal with a separate body, which examines any claims about disputed deductions.

Most of the farmers who have been penalised are small farmers living in disadvantaged areas in East Clare, particularly the Sliabh Aughty Area.

The department is required to carry out a mandatory range of inspections in order to meet EU requirements for direct aid-related schemes. These inspections must be carried out to a standard that meets EU audit requirements in order to protect the draw-down of the significant funding involved of some €1.8 billion under all of the Direct Aid Schemes, of which €1.3bn is accounted for by the Single Payment Scheme alone.

So far this year, 5,711 SPS applicants in Clare have been paid a 50% advance amounting to €23,263,989 with an average payment of €4,073.54.

“The inspection process is commenced at the earliest possible date and progressed as quickly as possible, bearing in mind the deadline for submitting applications and the need to carry out a risk-analysis process.

“In the case of remote sensing inspections, inspection activity, in fact, commenced in April 2012 when satellite imagery was obtained for the selected remote sensing zones,” the department stated.

However, the department hadn’t responded to the latest development in the farm inspections crux at the time of going to press.

“Do we want a situation where we are left with just forestry in the Sliabh Aughty area or do we want another national park like the Burren?” Councillor Hayes asked.

“The loss of these payments will have a big impact in rural communities where other small businesses benefit from investments made by farmers once they receive direct payments. This is on top of the suspension of the CLÁR programme, which funded a lot of good work such as community and forestry roads in rural areas,” he said.

The CLÁR programme assisted with the provision of phase three electricity to small businesses in rural areas, enhancement for small villages, water services to communities, sewage disposal in small villages, enhanced broadband and the upgrade of minor roads.

Councillor Hayes has requested the support of farming organisations and the Department of Agriculture to conduct a radical overhaul of other direct payments, such as the Disadvantaged Area Scheme (DAS) in a bid to keep rural communities alive.

There has also been criticism of some late inspections that took place, despite the fact that applications were made in May.

Councillor Pat Burke stated farmers had made deductions for roads and hedgerows but, in some instances, this wasn’t deemed enough following the introduction of satellite imaging, which can produce very clear photographs.

He stressed a lot more notice should be given to farmers before inspections are made and called for better management of the scheme to ensure farmers don’t learn about deductions in the post.

Having tried to assist one farmer in an appeal under the Disadvantaged Area Scheme, he admitted it could be difficult to get money back from the department once it is taken.

Clare IFA chairman, Andrew Dundas, said he was notified about an alleged overpayment for half a hectare in July. However, when he investigated the matter, he found that the scrubland was cleared and returned to forage. When this was brought to the attention of the department and further checks were made, he got his money back.

“If any farmer wasn’t notified about a particular over-claim for any of their direct payments, this is very unfair. The loss of income for any farmer who is facing increased feeding costs after the bad weather during the summer is a serious issue. In many cases direct payments are 100% of a farmer’s income,” he stated.