The Department of Agriculture should override the computer system and manually issue desperately needed cheques to farmers, ICMSA Deputy President Pat McCormack has said.
With Christmas now here there is still a significant number of farmers awaiting receipt of their Basic Payment – Greening payment, the ICMSA stated.
McCormack has called for the Minister for Agriculture to immediately instruct his Department to override the computer system concerned and begin manually issuing payments to the farmers concerned.
The ICMSA Deputy President said this should be done by the Department so that some degree of payment by early January can be counted upon.
McCormack noted that these farmers have now been waiting in excess of two and a half months for their payment.
McCormack said that it was not really good enough for the Department to blame their computer systems for the delay.
It is now incumbent upon the Minister to issue instructions that the systems must be bypassed or overrode and immediate manual issuing of the outstanding payments commenced as soon as possible, the ICMSA Deputy President said.
Payments worth €2.5m under 2014 Beef Data Programme to ‘issue shortly’
Payments due under the 2014 Beef Data Programme (BDP) will issue shortly, the Minister for Agriculture, Simon Coveney, has announced.
The payments amount to €2.5m and will be made before the year ends.
“I am delighted to announce that balancing and any residual payments due under the 2014 BDP, amounting to some €2.5m, will be made before the year-end.
“These payments follow closely on the €30m paid last week under the Beef Data and Genomics Programme,” he said.
Minister Coveney stated that the programme was introduced to improve the competitiveness of the Irish beef industry and the quality of the beef produced by improving the genetic quality of the National Suckler herd through the collection of essential breeding and production information.