A PLAN to pay farmers half their annual EU subsidy early has run into difficulty and farm organisations say up to 40,000 farmers have received no or only partial payments.
Tighter controls demanded by the EU on payout of the Single Farm Payment has delayed the process and the payout of the Disadvantaged Area Scheme has also been hit. The total of 108,000 farmers who receive EU payments should have been paid half the single farm payment in a deal worked out by Minister for Agriculture Brendan Smith. This payment would have seen €635 million arriving in the rural economy in the past 10 days.
But a stricter application process, which demands exact maps of the lands on which claims are made has meant under €500 million has been paid out so far. The delay was causing hardship for many farmers, said Gabriel Gilmartin, president, the Irish Cattle and Sheepfarmers Association.
“Many farmers have promised payments to merchants and in some cases, have already written the cheque in the expectation of getting paid by the department. To be let down at the last minute is not acceptable,” he said.
John Comer, deputy president and chairman of the Irish Creamery Milk Suppliers Association’s farm services and environment committee, said the delay was caused by department inspectors not completing paperwork.
Irish Farmers Association president John Bryan urged the Minister to remove the mapping bottleneck holding back over € 100 million. He said up to 40,000 farmers had payment partially or fully held up because of the mapping “mess” in the department.