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Minister Coveney confirms €1 billion paid to date under basic payment scheme

The Minister for Agriculture, Food and the Marine, Simon Coveney, TD, today confirmed that the next installment of payments under the 2015 Basic Payment Scheme and Greening will commence as scheduled on 1st December. In 2015, the main balancing payment is fixed at 27%.
The Minister commented that “since mid-October my Department has been issuing advance payments to farmers under the Basic Payment Scheme. These advance payments were set at the higher rate of 70% this year due to the challenges faced in the sector. Under EU Regulations, the 1st of December is the earliest date at which Member States are allowed to commence balancing payments, and I am glad to confirm that my Department has arranged for balancing payments to begin arriving in bank accounts from that date.”
The rollout of balancing payments brings the total paid under the Basic Payments Scheme to over €1 billion and over 115,000 farmers have received a payment to date. In addition, just under 84,000 farmers have been paid almost €180m under the Areas of Natural Constraint Scheme to date.
The Minister stated “payments under the Basic Payments Scheme and the Areas of Natural Constraint Scheme over the last few months represent a total payment of some €1.2 billion to farmers. This is a very significant financial boost for both individual farmers and the wider rural economy, and represents an important investment in the continued growth of our Agri-food sector.”
The Minister confirmed that his Department is continuing to prioritise the processing of outstanding cases under both schemes, saying "I can confirm that every effort continues to be made to clear for payment the small percentage of outstanding cases. Regular pay runs will continue to be run in December to this end. Given the difficulties faced in the sector this year, I am particularly happy that my Department has been in a position to optimise the rollout of payments. Our record in processing payments for farmers at the earliest possible date continues to compare very favourably to the systems in place in other Member States.”
The Minister urged farmers who may have outstanding queries from his Department to respond as soon as possible. “In this way I can ensure the quickest turnaround of cases for payment" the Minister said, “and it remains my firm intention to ensure that everything possible will continue to be done to issue the maximum level of payments to the farmers concerned as soon as possible".
The Minister also confirmed that payments under the National Reserve and Young Farmers Scheme will commence in mid December following the successful delivery of the Basic Payment Scheme Balancing Payments and will continue into January/ February 2016.

NOTES FOR EDITORS

The Basic Payment Scheme
Following on from the agreement of the new Common Agricultural Policy under the Irish Presidency of the EU in June, 2013 a number of new schemes and supports have been introduced. In particular, the Basic Payments Scheme has replaced the old Single Payment Scheme and a new Greening Payment has been introduced.
Since 16 October, advance payments have been issuing to farmers. Given the challenges faced in the sector this year, the rate of advance payment was set at 70%. In previous years, the advance payment had been set at 50%. Accordingly, the balancing payment now issuing is set at 27%.
Entitlements under the new Basic Payment Scheme are allocated to individual farmers based on the convergence model, which means that there will be minor alterations to the unit value of entitlements allocated as the cases of other farmers are processed. In that regard, it is necessary to retain 3% of payments until the spring of 2016. This amount will be paid at that stage when entitlements are definitively allocated.
The number of entitlements allocated to a farmer under the Basic Payment Scheme is based on the number of eligible hectares declared by the farmer in 2013 and 2015, whichever is less. The model, while initially retaining the link with payments under the Single Payment Scheme, gradually moves all farmers towards a national average value over the five years of the new scheme but does not arrive at a ‘flat-rate’ by 2019. The purpose of this model is to achieve a phased redistribution of payments between those who held high value entitlements and those who held low value entitlements under the Single Payment Scheme. It introduced a fairer more equitable distribution of funds between farmers while avoiding the negative impact of a move to a ‘flat-rate’.
Greening Payment
Ireland implemented the option of calculating the level of aid under the Greening Payment as a percentage of the amount of the Basic Payment rather than fixing a flat rate per hectare payment.