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The number of farmers that received land eligibility penalties for overclaim under the Basic Payment Scheme fell significantly between the years 2014 and 2015 - down from 7,600 farmers in 2014 to 1,700 in 2015. So far this year, 1,500 farmers face overclaim penalties.
In October, the Irish Farmers Journal revealed that penalties cost farmers €5m in 2015. These figures show that €1.3m of that was from overclaims on land eligible.
The map shows that Dublin and Louth received the highest penalty on average per farmer.
"New measures were announced in 2016 by way of a preliminary check and revised penalty regime, which are intended to further assist in the reduction of penalties for farmers," Minister for Agriculture Michael Creed said in response to a parliamentary question from Fianna Fáil agricultural spokesman Charlie McConalogue.
The preliminary check is exclusive to applicants who submit their application using the department's online system. It notifies applicants of an overclaim/dualclaim or overlap error on their application and allows them a window of up to 35 days in which to rectify this error without penalty.
"In 2016 over 5,000 notifications issued under the preliminary check system," Creed said. "A revised penalty regime was also introduced in 2016, which reduced the penalty imposed where an overclaim of between 3% and 20% occurred from twice the difference of the area overclaimed, to 1.5 times the difference now where the overclaim exceeds 3%, or two hectares.
"Furthermore, where the area overdeclared is over 3% and not greater than 10% the penalty is further reduced to .75 times the difference where it's the first time the herdowner has been penalised under the new rule."
These measures, it is expected, will contribute to the reduction of errors and the penalties applied. The figures show that so far in 2016 Louth has received the highest penalty for overclaims on average, it was also the highest in 2014 and second highest in 2015.
Farmers lost over €2.3m in overclaims penalties in 2014, with the average penalty just over €310. Nearly 7,600 applications had overclaim penalties in 2014, with over 1,000 of those in Cork.
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