DAS payments cleared for Aughty commonage

CLOSE on 50 commonage farmers in the Slieve Aughty area of South Galway have had their Disadvantaged Areas Scheme – DAS – payment cleared last week, following a wrangle over eligible areas that had held up payments for the past month.

Minister for Agriculture, Simon Coveney, in a Dáil reply to a question from Fianna Fáil Agriculture Spokesman, Éamon Ó Cuív, confirmed that outstanding issues had been resolved in respect of the Roxboro commonage in Castledaly.

Local councillor, Gerry Finnerty, had hit out at cuts in the eligible areas that were as a result of inspections carried out in September/October of last year without any notifications being given to commonage claimants.

“What happened is that farmers were accused of an over-claim despite the fact that they had been led to make this application by the Dept. of Agriculture,” said Cllr. Finnerty.

Following the inspections, the eligible area of almost 1,100 hectares (2,700 acres) was reduced to 476 hectares (1180 acres), leading to the hold-up in the DAS payments.

This week, Connacht IFA Regional Chairman, Tom Turley, told the Farming Tribune that the payments had been cleared since last Thursday/Friday, after an effort had been made to impose cuts by stealth.

“The full payments have been cleared for the claimants for this year and now we must strive to ensure that any outstanding issues are cleared up for next year,” said Tom Turley.

Deputy Ó Cuív, in a Dáil question to the Minister for Agriculture, asked when the payments would be cleared for the farmers involved in the Roxboro commonage and to give the reason for the delay in their payments.

“I can confirm that following processing of outstanding issues in respect of the commonages in question, the application of the claimants concerned have recently been finalised with payments due to issue shortly, directly to the bank accounts of the applicants involved,” said Minister Coveney.