CHRISTMAS has come early for thousands of Irish farmers who will not have to produce RSI/tax clearance certificates before receiving EU-funded grants and headage payments worth millions of pounds.
The Department of Agriculture confirmed yesterday it had already paid out nearly £17 million without the tax documentation made mandatory by the government in 1994.
It was decided then that farmers getting more than £5,000 in grants had to produce a tax clearance certificate. Those getting £500 to £5,000 had to confirm their tax affairs were in order.
This system was hailed as a breakthrough by the then government which said it was putting farmers on the same footing as other taxpayers and in future their tax affairs would be transparent.
For nearly 18 months the rules were strictly applied to the farming community, which will receive nearly £800 million in EU and Government aid this year.
A group of Dutch farmers, however, who faced similar regulations, brought a challenge to the European Court of Justice contesting the legality of nationally imposed rules on payments largely financed by the EU.
That challenge resulted in a Commission decision that such rules were illegal under Article 169 of the Treaty of Rome and should be discontinued.
Commission officials said linking RSI and tax clearance requirements was a national rather than an EU requirement and was not provided for in the EU regulations on headage payments.
A Department spokesman said yesterday that cheques worth more than £17 million for farm buildings had been paid out recently without the tax certificates being demanded.
Discussions on whether the requirements should be applied to all other payments, he said, were continuing with the Department of Finance, which has primary responsibility, and the Commission.
The payout was reported in the Irish Farmers Journal this week which quoted Mr John Fitzsimmons, chairman of the Irish Farmers' Association's farm business committee, as saying the decision would release funds for investment.