Farmers could launch legal action over cuts to Single Farm Payments
A group of farmers has enlisted the services of a solicitor and is in the process of preparing an application to the High Court over concerns that small farmers are being excessively penalised when it comes to Single Farm Payments.
Farmers involved in the action are likely to first launch a test case.
The farmers claim that due to “unprecedented reduced payments” to their Single Farm Payment entitlements in 2013, many are struggling to survive.
They claim that in some cases, parts of farmland that were previously inspected by Department of Agriculture officials and declared eligible for claims for the Single Farm Payment have more recently been deemed ineligible land for the purposes of the scheme.
The farmers believe that the Land Parcel Identification Scheme (LPIS) review, carried out by inspectors, has resulted in some land being incorrectly labelled as ineligible because of departmental fears of heavy fines from Europe for over-claims of farm land linked to the payment.
Corinne Maguire and her husband James, who farm suckler cows and sheep near Skibbereen in West Cork, are among those involved in preparing the legal action.
Ms Maguire said many farmers had been badly affected by what she described as the department carrying out “damage control”.
“What the department is doing, rightly or unjustly, is damage control,” she said, referring to the threat of fines from Europe.
She said “gross errors” had been made in other ways, such as the misreading of maps, by the department and that the survival of some farms was at stake.
She also said that where farmers were identified as having over-claimed by 20% or more, they lose 100% of their entire Single Farm Payment. The group has said this is an arbitrary and disproportionate penalty, prompting the legal challenge.
Dermot Kelleher, chairman of the West Cork branch of the Irish Cattle and Sheep Farmers’ Association, said while he was not personally affected, he knew many farmers who were and that there was growing support for those behind the proposed legal action.
“There is no understanding of people living in disadvantaged areas,” he said.
