Sheep farmers caught defrauding the system by making claims for sheep they did not have during the foot-and-mouth crisis in 2001 face a cut in their EU support next year, it has emerged.
The Department of Agriculture and Food confirmed yesterday it would base its calculation of the Single Payment for sheep on the actual numbers of animals slaughtered during the 2001 outbreak, not on ewe premium claims made in that year.
A nationwide investigation into ewe premium applications was ordered in 2001 when 100 farmers on the Cooley Peninsula were found to have made claims for 6,625 ewes which did not exist. The Department found irregularities in relation to claims on 100 of the 275 farms where they culled animals, and 17 farmers in the area claimed for 2,000 ewes they did not have.
Farmers in the area had put in claims for 37,165 ewe payments for this year at £19 a head. But when the mandatory cull was carried out, only 30,540 eligible animals could be accounted for.
In 2001, as a result of what had been uncovered in Cooley and because of restrictions placed on sheep movements, 7,500 farmers in the State were penalised for irregularities in their ewe premium applications. More than 1,700 had "serious problems".
Now, all the farmers found to have made false claims will lose out with the introduction of the Single Payment, which will incorporate all payments made to farmers based on what they were paid in the years 2000, 2001 and 2002.
A Department of Agriculture spokesman said that farmers would be informed of their Single Payment entitlements in early September and could appeal against that figure.
It was already, he said, processing force majeure applications from 14,000 farmers in the State who had submitted written information outlining difficulties they may have had in the reference years.
He said the foot-and-mouth outbreak in 2001 had created difficulties, especially for farmers who had stock slaughtered and where there was difficulty with restocking the following year.
"Each case will be treated on its merit but in the case of Cooley, the calculation will be based on the number of animals slaughtered in the cull and not on any other basis," he said.
He confirmed that rejection letters in response to force majeure applications from Cooley farmers had been incorrectly sent out.
He said the Cooley area was being treated differently because of the amount of information available to the Department as a result of the cull which had been carried out there.