Some 107,875 farmers have received payments totalling €680.1m under the Basic Payments Scheme (BPS) to date, according to the Minister for Agriculture, Simon Coveney.
This means over 12,000 of 120,000 applications were received by the Department are outstanding and advance payment of was set at 70% for 2015.
This was an increase of 20% from the normal 50% due to the difficulties encountered in the dairying and pigmeat sector, according to the Minister.
Under the Areas of Natural Constraints (ANC) Scheme the Minister stated that to date 82,242 farmers have received payments totalling €175m.
Over 19,000 farmers are still waiting on payments as there was 102,000 applications to the ANC scheme.
“As outstanding cases are fully processed and are cleared of any outstanding error, they will be processed for payment.
My Department is prioritising the processing of all such outstanding cases with regular payment runs continuing over the coming weeks for all fully processed cases.
“Balancing payments under the BPS are scheduled to commence from December 1,” he said.
The Minister said that his Department received 135,000 applications from farmers under the Direct Aid Schemes (which include BPS and ANC) which are funded or partially funded by the EU.
“Under EU Regulations, all applications must be subjected to robust administrative checks prior to payment.
“The main element of the administrative check is an area assessment. This is achieved by using the detailed database of individual land parcels.
“This is known as the Land Parcel Identification System (LPIS) which currently records, electronically, some 1m individual land parcels and which is required to be kept fully updated,” the Minister said.