A Co Wicklow farmer has been fighting a seven-year battle against the Department of Agriculture after a Department employee allegedly appropriated his payment entitlements by signing his name on official documents.

Kilmacanogue suckler and sheep farmer Paul Delamere told the Irish Farmers Journal that his ordeal began in 2009, when he got help from the Department official to update his maps after building a house. The official then offered to buy unused entitlements from him. The farmer said he agreed verbally but did not set a price or hear anything more until he received a letter from the Department in 2010 informing him that he had transferred 1.5 entitlements to a farmer later identified as the official’s wife.

In 2011, Delamere again received a Department letter stating he had transferred another 1.22 entitlements to the official’s own herd number. The farmer queried the transfer with the Department.

He obtained copies of the transfer forms and the two documents seen by the Irish Farmers Journal show visibly different signatures in the name of Paul Delamere, one of them with a spelling mistake, neither of which looks like his own. He reported his concerns to the gardaí, who investigated the case over the following years according to correspondence seen by the Irish Farmers Journal.

Transfer

Coming up to the May 2012 application deadline, Delamere said he found in his letterbox a transfer form signed by the Department official offering to return the 1.22 entitlements transferred the previous year, with a cheque for €361 from the official and his wife’s account. He did not complete the form or cash the cheque and reported them to the gardaí.

At that point, he sought assistance from the IFA, who repeatedly raised the case with the Department at the highest level over the following years in correspondence seen by the Irish Farmers Journal.

Internal Department auditors interviewed Delamere on his farm in May 2013 and took a detailed statement of events from him. “The Department has never contacted me about it since,” the farmer said.

Following a garda decision not to prosecute the official, a senior Department official wrote to the IFA on 26 July 2017, revealing that no internal investigation had ever taken place.

“A decision was made by the Department not to proceed with the internal investigation as it was, by then, a matter for the gardaí,” the letter seen by the Irish Farmers Journal reads.

“At this stage, the Department is not in a position to re-open this matter, given the significant passage of time and the fact that there would be no further action by them or the Director of Public Prosecutions,” the letter adds.

Unresolved

The issue remains unresolved for Delamere, who never recovered his entitlements. “I have a huge problem with someone using my name,” he said. Local farmers and IFA representatives have told the Irish Farmers Journal that the official in question is still working for the Department and complaints have been raised about his behaviour by other farmers.

The Department had not answered queries about this case at the time of going to press. The Irish Farmers Journal contacted the official, who redirected questions to his solicitor. Their response will be covered in upcoming issues.

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