Penalty rescinded after map error

A single farm payment penalty of more than 20% has been reduced to zero on a Co Donegal farm, after Department officials discovered that what looked like a lake on an aerial map was a shadow.

“Rocks also cause issues,” said an official at a Joint Committee on Agriculture, Food and the Marine debate.

“We are also aware that mistakes will occur when one is working on 900,000 parcels and redigitising one third, some 300,000 parcels, over a very short period.

“We will put our hands up if we make a mistake and we will correct it.”

“We took out roadways, but many farmers have told us that the roadway has been grassed over, and is now an area of green grass. We are putting all of that land back onto the maps.

“Initially, we took out REPS 4 habitats, as they were seen as ineligible, but all of those were put back. In some of the ordnance survey maps, drains were classified as rivers. A drain is fully eligible but we are able to identify all of those internally, and correct our mistakes.

“We do not have to wait for a farmer to tell that to the Department.”

“The same applied to the habitats issue, we were able to identify all REPS habitats on our system and put them back into the land parcels as eligible lands.

“This is an ongoing process. We are going through the appeals. Some 800 appeals are now with the digitising company, so that means the mistakes are being corrected and the areas in dispute are being reduced. Farmers will get refunds for 2013. When we have the outcome of the socalled rapid field visits and they show a reduction, refunds will be made to those farmers.”

Officials said verification visits will result in a reduction from over 20% to under 20% for some of the farmers who have eligible land discrepancies in excess of 20%.

“We have checked them out, both by getting our best people to look at the maps to see if there is any way to get the percentage down, and by sending inspectors just to look at the farm and see if there is anything there, for example, different types of scrub where we can make a difference and try to get the figures down.”

Officials have revealed that about 2,500 farmers have been informed of the application of retrospective deductions, for the 2009 to 2012 period.

The amount involved was €1 million, or an average of €100 per annum on an average payment of €11,000.

Where ineligible features were identified in 2013, orthoimages for earlier years were examined.

If existence of the feature could not be confirmed, no retrospection applies.