Farmers successfully contested scheme penalty or payment eligibility decisions in 48% of the appeals closed by the Agricultural Appeals Office in 2023. This was up from 44% in 2022.

The most common schemes subject to farmer appeals were the Basic Payment Scheme (BPS), the Suckler Carbon Efficiency Programme (SCEP) and the Targeted Agriculture Modernisation Schemes (TAMS).

The appeals office received 624 fresh appeals in 2023 and closed 652, some of which had been carried forward from the previous year.

Galway accounted for 73 of these new appeals, with a further 50 appeals made by farmers in counties Cork and Kerry.

The office met its appeal timeframe target in less than one in five of the appeals closed last year. It aims to get an appeals decision to farmers within three months of appointing an officer to each case.

The report stated that reasons for this target being missed included delays in scheduling oral hearings, the complexity of cases, legal issues and delays in farmers or the Department reverting with additional information requested as part of the appeals process.

The Department is asked by the appeals office to submit the documentation needed to decide on an appeal within 14 days of a request, but documents arrived on average six days late in 2023.

Beef Exceptional Aid Measure and Areas of Natural Constraint information took the longest on average to come from the Department.

The Government is moving to update the legislation around the appeals process in the Agricultural Appeals Bill 2024 which passed through its second Dáil stage on Monday.

This bill would introduce a review panel consisting of seven members, two of which would have farming backgrounds, and chaired by an independent person to review decisions made by the appeals office.

Currently, any reviews requested of the office’s decisions on appeals are handled solely by the office’s director.

The new panel as currently proposed would only review decisions where there are suspected errors of fact or law by an appeals officer, but the IFA has called for a review to be an avenue open to all decisions taken by the office.