Relief for farmers as state pays €67.6m bill for EU funding clawback
Instead, the clawback is covered by a Supplementary Estimate to increase the Department of Agriculture Food and the Marine expenditure for 2015.
Agriculture Minister Simon Coveney said, “I expected — as did a lot of farmers — that they would have to pay for a significant portion of the disallowance that was being applied to Ireland.
"Irish farmers were never going to have to pay all of it, but they expected to have to pay a decent chunk of it.”
“We now have agreed with the Department of Public Expenditure and Reform that we would clear it this year.”
He added, “The reality is that this was an issue that caused a lot of stress for people, so there will be a huge amount of relief that the matter has now been cleared up, and that farmers are not going to be asked to make the contribution.”
He said the €67.6m exclusion related mainly to Commission findings that Irish control systems were insufficiently robust in excluding ineligible land from payments to farmers and EU-funded schemes.
“While my Department has collected some €4 million in respect of overpayments, but not penalties, following the review of land parcels, my clear preference at this stage is that the cost of the disallowance be borne by the State.”
The clawback consisted of a €64m exclusion for the period 2008 to 2012, and a €3.6m exclusion for 2013 and 2014, representing 0.57% of the €12 billion in EU funding for these schemes in this seven-year period.
It was part of an EU decision last November to exclude a total of €278m from 18 member states. Other significant exclusions included €53m for the Netherlands, €51m for Italy, and €37.9m for the UK.
The Commission initially proposed an exclusion of €181m for Ireland. This was opposed by the Department of Agriculture in Dublin, which negotiated it down to €67.6m.
The Department already had about €3m set aside as a contribution to the EU disallowance, and €65m will come from a Supplementary Estimate, to cover the EU clawback in full.
Covering it with state funding is in line with similar decisions taken by many other member states on disallowances applied to their EU funds, said Mr Coveney.
The €104m Supplementary Estimate, along with savings in some schemes, will also cater for other Department of Agriculture expenditures in areas such as the World Food Programme, areas of natural constraints (formerly known as disadvantaged areas), and fishery harbours.
It will also provide an increase of €39m in the Department’s permitted net expenditure to deal with a European Commission decision, applying to all member states, to delay payment of some of their expected 2015 rural development receipts.
