Roughly 96,000 farmers are due a refund worth a collective €13.6 million under the Basic Payment Scheme (BPS).
Minister for Agriculture, Food and the Marine Michael Creed recently announced that the refund payments to farmers have already commenced.
The payments are refer to the 2015 Basic Payment Scheme. These are monies which were held back under the financial discipline rule.
The money is deducted from farmers’ payments annually to maintain the EU’s crisis reserve fund. If the fund is not used by the end of the year it goes back to farmers.
“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 said.
“[These payments] will bring the total paid to Irish farmers under the 2016 BPS to €1.2 billion,” he added.
Meanwhile, online applications to the BPS this year increased even further; they reached almost 114,000, he said.
Some 87{b28040870e2dde01f25bc5b483275391226143b34751c4bb8f1feeecaec925a1} of farmers availed of the online option for the 2017 scheme; a number which far exceeds the EU target of 75{b28040870e2dde01f25bc5b483275391226143b34751c4bb8f1feeecaec925a1} for this period and moves Ireland significantly towards its target of 100{b28040870e2dde01f25bc5b483275391226143b34751c4bb8f1feeecaec925a1} 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.
