| IFA President John Bryan said that it is totally unacceptable that over 5,000 farmers have received no Single Farm Payment or Disadvantage Area Payment at this stage. He said the payment date of December 1st has now been reached and he called on Minister Smith to instruct his Department to immediately remove the stop they have imposed on these payments because they have not completed the digitisation of maps. John Bryan said farmers with no payment because of digitisation, inspections and processing delays by the Department find themselves in an extremely difficult financial position heading into Christmas. John Bryan said while good progress has been made in delivering both SFP and DA’s payments to the majority of farmers the real measurement will now be how fast the Department can process outstanding payment cases. He said “the Minister must prioritise the processing of cases where no payment has been made”. This week the Department issued payment of €482m to 113,444 applicants as part of the SFP final payment. In addition, to date 93,071 applicants have been paid €192m in Disadvantage Area payments. The IFA President said all outstanding monies owed under the Single Farm Payment and Disadvantage Area Payments must be paid out before Christmas. Ends. |
Friday, 03 December 2010 07:59