A LEADING agricultural consultant, Mr Phillip Farrelly, has supported the suspension of two planners by the Department of Agriculture because of difficulties over REPS plans.
Mr Farrelly, who is chairman of the consultant's association involved in drawing up plans for the Rural Environment Protection Scheme, said last night he supported any moves to regularise this important scheme.
"If the Department is saying that the planner must walk the farm and inspect it before the second year's payment is made, I fully support that," he said.
It had emerged that some planners were prepared to sanction documents for second-year payments on the basis of documentation alone, he continued.
"I do not agree that this can be done and I believe that the planner must go out and inspect the farm to ensure that the farmer is fulfilling his contract and that everything is in order."
Reputable planning companies like his own, he said, insisted on ensuring that the terms of the plan they had drawn up for the farmer were being implemented.
He and his consultants had told farmers that there would be a fee for inspecting the farm and going over the plan in the second and subsequent years.
"We now know that cut-price operators are offering their services to farmers at a fee which would not cover inspection," he said.
In his opinion, farmers could avoid being fined under the scheme by using reputable planners who could help them avoid penalties, stated by the Department on Tuesday to be averaging Pounds 750 per farmer.
Mr Farrelly said he feared the Department would not be able to spend the money available from the EU to implement the scheme, which was due for review in October, 1997.
Under the terms of REPS, farmers can receive up to Pounds 5,000 a year for five years, on entering into a contract drawn up by a planner, to farm in an environmentally-sensitive way.