Details have emerged of the review of the appeals system under which farmers can challenge penalties imposed on their direct payments by the Department of Agriculture.

“It is expected that the review will be completed by the end of this year,” the Department told the Irish Farmers Journal in a statement.

If this target is met, it should allow farmers to appeal under new terms on 2018 payments.

The statement said that there will be independent experts on the steering committee which Minister for Agriculture Michael Creed will establish.

This will meet a key demand for farmers that the review should not be carried out by Department of Agriculture officials.

The Department said it anticipates that stakeholders will be invited to have an input into the process.

The decision to hold a review arose from protests by Tipperary North IFA led by chair Tim Cullinan over the higher-than-average number of inspections and penalties on its farmer members.

Commitment

This resulted in a commitment for a review being included in the Programme for Partnership Government.

New impetus has been given to the review following this month’s grilling of Department of Agriculture officials on the issue of inspections and appeals by the Oireachtas Committee on Agriculture. Last week, deputy chair of the committee Jackie Cahill noted that while the Government was now in power for over a year, the review had not got under way.

In its statement to the Irish Farmers Journal, the Department of Agriculture said that the Programme for Government committed to review the Agriculture Appeals Act 2001 “to ensure the independence and efficiency of the Office in dealing with appeals from farmers”.

According to the Department, the appeals process is governed by the Agriculture Appeals Act 2001 and Agriculture Appeals Regulations 2002.

“The Agriculture Appeals service is implemented through a separate executive with its own premises and staff which operates independently of the Department,” it said this week.

“The functioning of the office is overseen by the Director of Agriculture Appeals,” the Department said.