Letters of apology issued to farmers who had Beef Exceptional Aid Measure (BEAM) penalties applied as deductions to their Areas of Natural Constraints (ANC) payment “must be accompanied by a cheque”, the Irish Farmers’ Association (IFA) has said.
This follows the news earlier this week that Minister for Agriculture, Food and the Marine Charlie McConalogue has instructed his officials to issue an apology to farmers were affected by the move.
Commenting, IFA Livestock Committee chairman Brendan Golden stressed that all monies deducted from farmers must be repaid immediately.
“The letter of apology must be accompanied by a cheque,” Golden said.
“It’s not acceptable that ANC money was taken from farmers, who would have earmarked this for contractors’ bills and school and college fees.
“The handling of the scheme from the start has been a bureaucratic disaster. The latest move by the department has infuriated farmers,” he said.
The IFA met with senior Department of Agriculture, Food and the Marine (DAFM) officials yesterday (Thursday, September 16) to “seek urgent changes to their approach to the BEAM scheme”.
Continuing, the chairman outlined his view that, while farmers who could not meet the conditions understood the implications, it was “no excuse” for the way DAFM dealt with the issue.
“The 5% reduction should never have been part of the scheme,” he added.
“The farmers who had monies taken from them by the Department of Agriculture are suckler and beef farmers. They are the most vulnerable sectors in the country and most dependent on direct payments for their income, farming in ANC areas.
Golden stressed that farmers must be given the option of an extended re-payment period and the interest charge has to be removed.
“Farmers who had opted for the new reference period must be allowed choose the better of the two reference periods at the end of the scheme.
“The department and the Minister for Agriculture Charlie McConalogue can recover some ground here by doing the right thing, even at this late stage, by maximising the flexibilities secured by the minister from the [European] Commission earlier this year,” the IFA chairman concluded.