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Creed Announces €13.6m Basic Payment Refund to 96,000 farmers

The Minister for Agriculture, Food and the Marine, Michael Creed TD, today announced that the payment of €13.6 million to approximately 96,000 farmers has commenced. This money was deducted from their 2015 Basic Payment Scheme (BPS) payments under the Financial Discipline rule.

Minister Creed said ‘I am pleased to confirm that the Financial Discipline deduction totalling €13.6 million from the 2015 BPS payment will now be reimbursed to eligible 2016 applicants.’  The Minister added that these payments “will bring the total paid to Irish farmers under the 2016 Basic Payment Scheme to €1.2 billion”.

Minister Creed also added “the 2017 Basic Payment Scheme saw a further increase in the number of online applications to almost 114,000.  87% of farmers availed of the online option for the 2017 scheme, a number which far exceeds the EU target of 75% for this period and moves Ireland significantly towards its target of 100% online applications in 2018.”

In relation to the 2017 BPS, preliminary checks for online applicants will begin to issue shortly.  Where a farmer receives a notification of a preliminary check, they should respond to it as soon as possible.  Further information will issue in this regard as notifications begin to issue.

Note to editors

In the context of the annual budgetary procedure of the European Union, the financial discipline mechanism which is implemented by the Member States involves a monetary deduction from some direct payments thereby creating a financial Crisis Reserve for the European Union. The crisis reserve is intended to provide additional support for the agricultural sector in the case of major crises affecting agricultural production or distribution. In the event that the Crisis Reserve is not activated in the financial year, or it is not fully utilised, the balance not used is refunded to farmers in the subsequent financial year, hence this reimbursement.

To view this Press Release as a PDF: DAFMPR 103/2017 (pdf 369Kb) 

Date Released: 12 June 2017