Department of Agriculture ‘acted unfairly’ in seeking to recover forestry grant

The Department of Agriculture acted unfairly when it sought to recover a €25,000 forestry grant from a Kerry farmer whose land flooded, the Ombudsman has found.

The department had approved the grant in 2004 under the Afforestation Grant and Premium Scheme to allow the farmer establish a forest on his land. But payments stopped in 2010 after the landowner informed the department extreme flooding had destroyed the forest. In January 2013, the Department directed the farmer to pay back the €25,000 he had been paid under the grant, and sought the repayment in full, within a month.

The farmer appealed and the department argued the landowner was aware the site was prone to flooding when applying for the funds.

However, the Ombudsman found the department had inspected the land prior to awarding the grant and would have been aware of the potential for flooding. It could not hold the farmer responsible for something outside of his control, the Ombudsman ruled.

The Ombudsman also discovered the South Western Regional Fisheries Board had written to the department in May 2004 advising that part of the site may be subject to flooding, prior to the awarding of the grant.

Furthermore, the department also overruled the opinion of one of its forestry inspectors who, in May 2013, ruled the damage to the land was a case of force majeure.

“Where people apply for and receive grants in good faith, they should not be reclaimed,” Ombudsman Peter Tyndall said.

“This is particularly so in this case where the farmer lost his crop through no fault of his own and was hit with the double blow of a bill from the department. I’m glad we were able to put things right,” he said.

The land in question is surrounded by canals which form part of a local drainage network, and responsibility for maintenance of the drains feeding this network lies with the local authority.

However, in the course of its investigation, the Ombudsman’s office learned the council stopped draining the canals around 2009 because of damage caused by the floods. The local authority said that it could not maintain the local drainage network each year because of budget restrictions.

The Ombudsman found the drains on the man’s land were satisfactory but could not work properly because of the lack of maintenance of the local drainage network.

The department had argued the farmer had removed the trees from the land, that he knew the area was prone to flooding and did not declare this in his application, and that it was unreasonable for him to rely on the council’s drainage maintenance to fulfil his obligation.

A department official subsequently confirmed the trees had been removed as a result of the flooding.