This article is from page 36 of the 2008-04-01 edition of The Clare People. OCR mistakes are to be expected so download the original SWF or the rendered page 36 JPG
THE new REPS4 deal announced last week by the Minister for Agri- culture and Food, Mary Coughlan, has been described as “unaccept- able” by the IFA.
The organisations Rural Develop- ment Chairman Tom Turley attacked the decision, claiming that the move away from the early payments sys- tem, which he claimed has been a key feature of farmers joining the REPS scheme for the past 14 years, will impact negatively on uptake in the years ahead.
“It is now clear that the targets set out for the REPS scheme in the Part- nership negotiations will not now be
met. Farmers will be very reluctant to change from REPS 3 to REPS 4 until their five year contract period has been completed because by do- ing so they will be moving into a very different payment regime,” he PALO
“The REPS scheme has proven of enormous benefit to the rural envi- ronment since it was first introduced in 1994. Up to 60,000 farmers were in the scheme when REPS 3 closed for applications at the end of 2006.
“The scheme has shown itself to be one of the flagship agri-environ- mental schemes in the European Union delivering huge benefits to the countryside. Farmers who have been out of the REPS scheme for the
past 18 months and who now wish to join REPS 4 will have been without payment for two years following the Minister’s announcement.
“The objective for the scheme of having 70,000 farmers participating by the end of 2013 has been seri- ously jeopardized by the outcome of the discussions between Minister Coughlan and the European Com- mission.”
Earlier last week, the Minister for Agriculture, Mary Coughlan, an- nounced a change in European Com- mission rules which would allow more than 3,000 REPS farmers to join REPS 4 when their existing con- tracts come to an end this year.
“The concession on REPS 4 is
a very significant one. As things stood, the new Commission Regula- tions governing REPS 4 would have meant that most farmers with REPS contracts ending in 2008 would have had to wait until 2009 to join REPS 4 and would not have got any pay- ment until early autumn of next year. However, we have secured a special transitional arrangement for 2008 so that these farmers will be in a posi- tion to start their REPS 4 contracts and get payment later this year,’ she said.
The special transitional provisions are the outcome of intensive discus- sions on the interpretation of the Reg- ulation between Department officials and their counterparts in the Com-