CC
Catherine Connolly
I am deferring Question No. 2 for a minute. Deputy Carthy is next or I can give him a break and go to Deputy Canney.
Dail Éireann · 2023-03-09
Party shown is the one held on 2023-03-09, frozen at parse time — not the speaker's party today.
The ANC scheme is one of the most important supports for farmers. Farmers cannot proceed with their application unless they declare they are either applying or not applying for the ANC scheme. If applicants do not tick the box to apply for the ANC scheme initially and if they have received a payment under the scheme in previous years, they are presented with an additional pop-up warning on screen under the heading “Do you wish to apply for ANC?”.
If the farmer did not tick the box to apply for ANC and then selected "no change", the ANC pop-up warning would have appeared for the farmer. My Department directly contacted farmers who had applied for the ANC scheme in 2021 but did not tick the box to apply for it when submitting their basic payment scheme, BPS, application in 2022, despite having declared ANC land in their application.
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I am deferring Question No. 2 for a minute. Deputy Carthy is next or I can give him a break and go to Deputy Canney.
I will let Deputy Canney go first.
Deputy Carthy needs a break. The issue I want to raise relates to the areas of natural constraint, ANC, payments. Will the Minister initiate a review of cases where a small cohort of farmers were given a 100% penalty for the fact they had not ticked a box when they made their application? Bear in mind this application process began as a manual process, then reverted to an online system. Will the Minister initiate a review? There are not many farmers involved but they are suffering badly because they are getting a 100% penalty.
I thank Deputy Canney for raising what is an important point. The ANC scheme is one of the most important supports for farmers. It helps to support and sustain agriculture in all four corners of Ireland and in the constituency the Deputy represents, as I am sure he is well aware. Those benefits trickle down to farmers' local communities as well. As a Department, we work closely with farmers to ensure they maximise all available payments for their farm.
It must be noted that CAP payments, including those made under the areas of natural constraint or ANC scheme, are governed by EU regulations and are subject to rigorous audit and are controlled by the European Commission. The mandatory use of online application was introduced in 2018. The online application process in Ireland has been streamlined over many years to ensure quick, efficient, and responsive processing and prompt payment to farmers. The application process is reviewed annually to make it is as clear and straightforward as possible. Every effort is made by the Department to improve the quality of applications with the aim of lowering errors and allowing payments to issue in good time.
The "no change" option was introduced following years of experience and consultation with farmer representative organisations. The wording was settled on to avoid farmers mistakenly not applying for the ANC scheme. Farmers cannot proceed with their application unless they declare they are either applying or not applying for the ANC scheme. It is an EU requirement that farmers must make a declaration they are applying for the scheme and that they will comply with the terms and conditions, and that is at the nub of this and why we have to have farmers tick that box. If applicants do not tick the box to apply for the ANC scheme initially and if they have received a payment under the scheme in previous years, they are presented with an additional pop-up warning on screen under the heading “Do you wish to apply for ANC?”. This warning advises applicants that they had received ANC payments in previous scheme years and requests them to select from one of two options, either to apply or not to apply for the ANC scheme.
That response does not give any help to the farmers I know in my constituency. There are probably about ten I have on my books at the moment who are getting no money. They are elderly farmers who are computer illiterate and they did not tick the box. In fact, three of those farmers never said a word that they failed to get their grants until their accountant discovered it because they were ashamed of the fact they failed to get their grant. There are rules and regulations and all of that but there also has to be some sort of what we would call fairness in the system. When somebody genuinely makes a mistake and genuinely did not realise what he or she did or did not do, all the rules in Europe give that person no comfort when he or she is being 100% penalised. For the sake of making sure the farmers who need this are treated properly, I ask that a review be done. It would cost very little within the overall budget within the Department.
I take on board the point and can only imagine how stressful it is to deal with individual farmers who missed out on this. On the Deputy's request for a review, I reassure him that we constantly review the system and how we do it. However, we have to work within the constraints of EU regulations as well. The ANC tick-box screen was displayed before the farmer could select the "no change" option. If the farmer did not tick the box to apply for ANC and then selected "no change", the ANC pop-up warning would have appeared for the farmer. I understand that is cold comfort to the farmers the Deputy represents.
The challenge we have is that experience at EU audit level has shown that Ireland's classification of mistakes as obvious administrative errors can only apply after an application is made by the farmer. The auditors decided that, if no application was made, as in the box was not ticked, obvious error cannot be invoked. In the instance where an application has not been made, this must be treated as a late application rather than an obvious error in an existing application. That is the challenge we have. We cannot deal with it under a mistake because the application never actually happened because that box was not ticked. I will give more detail in my further supplementary reply about what the Department has done to work proactively with farmers.
I hear what the Minister of State is saying. It is of little comfort. The funny thing about it is I have been to agriculture appeals with these people and the people who do the appeal do everything manually. They do not do it on computers. They take their notes manually. It it important we realise we are dealing with human beings: small farmers, who may be elderly and some of whom are bachelors living on their own. They have very little income. There is a way around this and that is to review how we can bring these farmers back into the net. The penalty should not be 100%. I can make a mistake by not ticking a box but does it mean I do not get paid for five years? If we think about it, it is not fair or rational and we have to find a solution for it for the few farmers who are affected by it. Especially on the west coast, down along Kerry and up towards Donegal, there are farmers along that area because the ANC was designed to help these farmers in the terrain they live in.
I take on board how serious this is for the farmers affected, and that is why we have so many safeguards in place between the extra pop-ups on the screen to point out to the farmer that they are potentially about to make a significant mistake. In the 2022 application process, my Department issued an information letter in April of that year. We also reviewed applications on an ongoing basis, and in the run-up to the 2022 closing date, we contacted farmers if it appeared they were eligible for ANC but did not apply. My Department directly contacted farmers who had applied for the ANC scheme in 2021 but did not tick the box to apply for it when submitting their basic payment scheme, BPS, application in 2022, despite having declared ANC land in their application. The purpose of these calls was to confirm that the applicants had correctly indicated that they did not wish to apply for the ANC scheme in 2022 and to advise those who had incorrectly ticked the box to amend their application. Approximately 150 farmers subsequently amended their BPS application to include an application for the ANC scheme following the receipt of a call from the Department. My officials went to great lengths to identify the farmers that may have made this mistake and to try to help them with it. Nonetheless, I take on board the Deputy's point of view and I reassure him that we constantly review these schemes and the interactions of farmers with them.
I passed over Deputy Carthy and I will come back to Deputy Barry after that.