To date 1,566 cases have been identified as having an Area of Natural Constraints (ANCs) area over declaration and received yellow card penalties, according to the Minister for Agriculture, Michael Creed.

Responding to a parliamentary question from Fianna Fail’s Charlie McConalogue last week, the Minister said that date 87,038 beneficiaries have received in excess of €188m in payments.

Payment under Areas of Natural Constraints Scheme commenced on the third week of September as agreed under the Farmers Charter.

Of those cases outstanding awaiting payment, a number have been identified as having an area over claim and therefore require the application of the new yellow card penalty regime.

“Whereas clarification in relation to the implementation of the new penalty regime for Basic Payment Scheme was received at an early date, clarification on the implementation of this new penalty regime under ANC was only recently received from the Commission.

“My department is now making the necessary changes to the computerised payment procedure to allow further processing of these cases.

“These cases have been prioritised for clearance,” he said.

Currently, there are no cases under the Basic Payment Scheme that are awaiting processing due to the implementation of the new yellow card rules, according to the Minister.

yellow-cards-ancs