Ó Cuív hits out at ‘bureaucrats’ as overclaim is revealed to be less than 1%
They have estimated the overclaim is 44,000 hectares out of the 4.7 million hectares declared under the single farm payment scheme and the other direct aid schemes annually by 132,000 farmers.
Deputy Éamon Ó Cuív said the single farm payment over-claim for 44,000 hectares is only about €8 million out of a €2 billion total in Ireland.
“Some people in Brussels must be awful bored because, like a lot of things that people get excited about, this is peanut money in the greater scheme of things,” he told a Joint Committee on Agriculture, Food and the Marine, which was updated on the ineligible land issue by Department officials.
“This issue has caused a lot of personal grief to an awful lot of people, and has led to an awful lot of worry for older people, over a whole heap of nothing. It confirms my belief that European bureaucrats live in a rarefied and weird world that bears no relationship to my world,” Mr Ó Cuív said.
However, officials told the committee that EU regulations give the European Commission the right to impose a flat-rate correction of 2%, 5%, 10%, or greater, depending on its assessment of the risk to the EU fund involved.
A 2% correction to the EU money spent between 2008 and 2012 would mean a loss of €160m in funding to Ireland, with further losses in prospect on an ongoing basis.
Already, member states such as France, the Netherlands, Sweden, Denmark, Austria and the UK have suffered major financial disallowances of hundreds of millions of euro for weaknesses in their land parcel identification systems.
From 2002 to 2012, the Commission imposed financial corrections totalling almost €6 billion on member states.
To date, Ireland’s share has amounted to about €26m, or less than half of 1% of the total amount corrected (only six out of 27 member states have a lower disallowance level).
Officials told the committee the key for Ireland is to minimise the amount of money that has to be transferred.
