The Irish Natura and Hill Farmers Association (INHFA) has called on the Minister for Agriculture to immediately suspend plans to clawback Agri-Climate Rural Environment Scheme (ACRES) overpayments from farmers.

The farm organisation has claimed that the “basis to assess these overpayments is flawed."

INHFA vice president John Joe Fitzgerald said farmers have been contacting the INHFA following the publication of their habitat scores and associated maps “detailing worrying mistakes.”

The mistakes relate to the area mapped, where farmers have found that they have been given scores for land parcels that they don’t own, while some of their own land parcels are missing, Fitzgerald said.

“We are trying to assess how widespread this issue is and we are encouraging all farmers (especially those that have been contacted around an overpayment claim) to cross reference their ACRES parcel number against their land parcel identification system (LPIS) number,” he said.

Payments

With the habitat scores being a critical element in farmer’s overall payment, especially for farmers in ACRES co-operation, Fitzgerald said that “the inclusion of incorrect land parcels and/or the exclusion of correct land parcels could have a massive bearing on a farmer’s final payment.”

He said that it is “vital that the parcel numbers are correct and this is why we are calling on the Department to immediately suspend the recovery of any ACRES payments.”

Delay to NPIs

The INHFA has also taken issue with the delay by the Department in ratifying the non productive investments (NPIs) and landscape actions (LAs).

“These delays, coupled with the delay in getting the scores out to farmers, will negatively impact farmers in the coming year, especially those farmers that have had their lands assessed for the second time this summer,” Fitzgerald said.

The Department’s inability to ratify these actions has “denied these farmers the opportunity to address possible issues such as invasive species or dumping and will see their score locked in for another two years, condemning them to their current payment rates and also negatively affecting biodiversity,” he said.

He said the INHFA has written to the minister requesting a meeting and the opportunity to address an ever increasing number of ACRES related issues.

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