A group of farmers, known as the Disadvantaged Farmers Legal Challenge, which plan to take the Department of Agriculture to court over land eligibility concerns insist they ‘haven’t gone away’.
Last year, the group said it had raised over €70,000 in a national fundraising drive to fund a court case against the Department.
Land eligibility fines are the key issue for the group and its Chairman Dermot Kelleher has said that some 33,000 farmers are affected and the fines to date have targeted farming families on marginal land.
Kelleher says a legal case must be taken to protect the future of such farmers and generations to come.
He said the group had been waiting until after the recent General Election to take their case against the Department and they had also taken confidence from the recent outcome of a similar case, which a group of fishermen successfully took against the Department recently.
“Following the outcome of this case we are very confident and we will be lodging our case in the near future,” Kelleher said.
Meanwhile, the Department of Agriculture recently clarified the position for farmers with natura land in relation to 2016 BPS applications.
The clarification means that if natura land was claimed in 2008 and was eligible but has since become ineligible as a result of the management requirement or ecological objective of the natura site, then that land remains eligible if it continues to be farmed.
The clarification is seen as important, as some farmers were having land ruled out for various payments.
According to the IFA, there may also be instances where farmers have been unfairly penalised and IFA will make a case for a refund. A recalculation of BPS may also apply as the land may have been eligible in 2013 or 2015 and these years are used to calculate the BPS in 2015 and beyond.