Ineligible land hits up to 12,700ha

The number of ineligible hectares claimed by single farm payment applicants has ranged from 7,760 to 12,709 per year, since 2006.

Agriculture Minister Simon Coveney told TD Willie O’Dea in the Dáil that it is the responsibility of all applicants to ensure the details in each year’s application are accurate, and to make the appropriate deductions for ineligible features such as houses, farm buildings, roadways, scrub, forests, lakes etc on about 900,000 eligible land parcels. These details are registered and continually monitored by the department.

The extent of ineligible land is established through on-the-spot eligibility inspections, remote sensing eligibility inspections, and administrative checks of anomalies such as dual-claims, all undertaken by the Department of Agriculture.