Good news for West Cork farmers as Government to take on EU Commission funding clawback – Harrington

Fine Gael TD for Cork South West, Noel Harrington has said it is very good news that West Cork farmers will not have to contribute to the €67.6 million of funding that is being clawed back from Ireland by the EU Commission.

“This clawback is due to the claiming of payments for ineligible land. The €67.6m exclusion relates mainly to Commission findings that Irish control systems were not sufficiently robust in excluding ineligible land from payments to farmers.

“There has been a lot of fear among farmers that they would have to contribute a significant amount to this but Minister for Agriculture Simon Coveney has now confirmed that it will be covered by a Supplementary Estimate to increase the Department of Agriculture Food and the Marine expenditure for 2015.

“This is an issue that has caused a lot of stress for people, so there will be a huge amount of relief that the matter has now been cleared up, and that farmers are not going to be asked to make the contribution.

“This announcement is further proof of Fine Gael’s plans to support rural Ireland and keep the recovery going in all corners of the country.

“In order to live happily in rural Ireland we need jobs, services and a good standard of living for our families. We are seeing economic progress in rural Ireland, with over 135,000 more people at work in the country. However we cannot take for granted that stability and recovery will continue so our plan for the country will deliver more new jobs, spread right across the country, as well as affordable, sustainable improvements in services using the resources from growing employment.”