Remote Sensing Inspections

Part of Private Members' Business – in the Northern Ireland Assembly at 6:00 pm on 17 February 2014.

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Photo of Robin Swann Robin Swann UUP 6:00, 17 February 2014

Thank you very much.  I take the Member's point.  However, I will be honest with him.  The farmers whom I know are still paying their helpers, which is where the frustration comes in.  They are still meeting the suppliers' needs.  They are still meeting their bank payments.  It is their families who are suffering, which is why we need to speed up the processes.  When remote sensing and aerial photography were brought, the Minister said — I will quote her from18 June 2012 — that it was to "help reduce the administrative burden".  They did that and reduced the administrative burden by one letter, the letter that would have informed each of those families that their farms were to be inspected.

As far as I am aware, up to 19 inspections by DARD or its associated bodies can take place on farms, and each one of those can give up to two days' notice.  So they can give notice of the inspections.  I have heard Mr McAleer ask, on a number of occasions, whether we would rather break EU regulations.  The guide on how to complete a 2013 single application and field data sheet states:

"By submitting a Single Application, you agree to permit the Department to carry out an OTS land eligibility check (with or without prior notice at any reasonable time)."

So even the Department, in its guidance notes, says that it has the ability to give notice of an area for remote inspection.  It is within the Minister's gift to do this, and I ask her again to do it.  Remote sensing will not go away.  The frustrations have been mentioned repeatedly by a number of Members, and the debate has to try to improve the situation for next year.  We have to get the payment out to the waiting families and ensure that the process is improved for next year.

Last year's pilot of 250 claims was referred to.  It was June, Mr McMullan, before most of those farmers were paid.  I think that the pilot was in and around the Ballyclare area.  We now find that, because it is such a small geographical area, men meet at the same marts and agricultural suppliers so that information is being passed on.  Families have been promised payment, but when Department officials ring, they say, "The payment will be coming at the end of February".  They also meet farmers who say to them, "I was part of that project last year, and I did not get paid until June".  So the stress on our farm families is increasing.

One thing that I find frustrating is the handling of single farm payments and how we process them.  The Minister outlined this information in a recent answer to me.  The cost to the Department of managing the single farm payment increased from £2 million to £2·63 million from 2010-11 to 2012-13, not including the cost of inspections.  That is a 30% increase in three years.  That is the cost of managing the fiasco to date.  Out of this debate needs to come a better use of resource and learning from what we have seen last year and this year.  I hope that the Department is able to do it. 

My concern now is that I am already receiving communication from members of staff in DARD to the effect that, in the Department, people are being moved about to try to meet the February date.  Other schemes, payment divisions and branches are having personnel removed to try to meet that date and ease the situation.  Although that is commendable, I hope that the —