Clawback on entitlements sale reveals a new layer of red tape

YET another row over the Single Farm Payment Scheme, which was meant to be such a simple, non-bureaucratic, freedom-to-farm regime.

Many farmers have yet to be paid their 2005 entitlements, because of complexities which remain to be resolved.

Now, the clawback on the sale of entitlements has added another layer of dissatisfaction.

Macra na Feirme President Colm Markey has highlighted the lack of regulations to prevent Single Payment recipients from back-dating their entitlement transfers in order to avoid the clawback.

He has a valid point. However, the Department of Agriculture could be faced with a legal challenge if they backdated the effective date; applying new regulations retrospectively would have a weak legal basis.

Still, it can be argued that the base for all entitlements was set retrospectively, based on premia payments received in 2000, 2001 and 2002. Where does that stand legally? If one major SFP regulation can be back dated, why not another?

Back-dating entitlement transfers won’t be the last of the problems with the scheme. The looseness of the linkage between the Single Payment and land is going to continue to create difficulties and anomalies, as long as this scheme is applied in the format chosen in Ireland.

One of the next issues to come to the fore, in the not too distant future, will be the difference in market value of land with and without entitlements.

Meantime, there will be a new layer of bureaucracy to be negotiated for those transferring entitlements, complicated by stacking.