IFA PUSH DEPT FOR ALL PAYMENTS TO BE MADE WITHIN DEADLINE

IFA Deputy President Richard Kennedy led the IFA team at a meeting of the Charter of Farmers’ Rights Monitoring Committee chaired by Sean Brady in Portlaoise on Friday.

IFA raised a number of issues, all related to delivering direct payments across all the schemes on time to farmers and within the deadlines set down by the Charter of Rights.  Richard Kennedy said a number of important outcomes and key information for farmers came from the Charter meeting.

• 2019 BPS (Basic Payment Scheme) Applications 2019 BPS applications opened on Feb 7^th.  To date 9,193 applications have been received online. The Department has a help desk available to assist farmers with any queries on their application. The Department will organise a series of one-to-one clinics around the country with farmers over the coming weeks to assist with their application.
• 2018 BPS 123,000 farmers paid €1.173bn.
• 2018 ANC 94,567 farmers paid €226.5m.
• BEEP (Beef Environmental Efficiency Pilot Scheme) 18,593 (10,410 on-line and 8,833 paper) suckler farmers have applied, with an average estimated herd size of 25 cows, totalling about 465,000 cows. IFA called for the closing date for applications to be extended.
• BDGP (Beef Data and Genomics Scheme) 22,864 applicants out of 24,544 have been paid €41m for 2018. IFA called for payment to 690 inspection cases and 1,076 non-inspection cases. IFA also called for the immediate issuing of tags for the 2019 scheme.
• Sheep Welfare Scheme 18,607 farmers paid €15.14m. 150 outstanding cases to be paid in the next two weeks. Final tranche payment in last week of April.
• National Reserve 913 applications under the 2018 reserve. 2019 scheme now open for application.
• Young Farmers Scheme 9,520 applications under the 2018 scheme, worth €24m. 2019 scheme now open.
• Organic Scheme 1,338 farmers paid €6.27m for 2018 scheme.
• GLAS 46,649 farmers paid €167m.
• TAMS 23,532 applications. 19,167 approved. Payment claims submitted for 8,676 cases and 7,824 paid €114.6m.
• Knowledge Transfer 17,566 farmers paid €11.02m.

The IFA Deputy President said the Department of Agriculture confirmed to IFA that any land eligibility fines on Ireland would amount to no more than €1.3m per year over three years.