€48.6 million savings windfall in agriculture schemes
The World Food Programme’s humanitarian and development work, and farmers in the GLAS environmental scheme, are among the main beneficiaries of a €48.6 million savings windfall in the Department of Agriculture.
Much of the savings — about €12m — arise due to delays in recruitment of staff needed in the Department of Agriculture, leading to payroll underspending.
But €9m arises due to what Agriculture Minister Michael Creed described as a disappointing uptake of the new sheep welfare scheme in 2017.
The scheme pays €10 per breeding ewe to flock owners undertaking two animal health-related actions.
It was estimated to cost €25m this year, at €10 for each of the 2.5 million ewes in the State, but not all sheep farmers who were eligible for the scheme applied for it.
It will reopen next year for new applicants, but in the meantime, €9m budgeted for it will be diverted to other expenditure areas.
The minister’s savings windfall also includes €7m from the farmer early retirement scheme, due to participants receiving the State pension, thus reducing the scheme spend by a corresponding amount.
From the beef data and genomics programme (BDGP), €3m goes into a savings windfall, due to fewer than anticipated successful applicants when the programme was re-opened in 2017.
And €2.8m comes from the knowledge transfer programme, due to a minority of the 19,000 farmers in knowledge transfer groups not having complied with all the conditions required for full payments.
Mr Creed said the savings windfall (due to a less than 2% underspend of the Department’s €2.5bn budget for 2017) has freed up €14.5m for the over 50,000 farmers in the GLAS scheme, money which is needed to pay them the increased advance payments of 85% approved in September by the European Commission.
He has allocated €10m for Ireland’s contribution to the World Food Programme’s humanitarian work.
The Government’s Brexit loan scheme for businesses will get €9m of the savings windfall, going towards €23m of seed capital for providing €300m of low-cost working capital finance, at least 40% of which will be available to food businesses.
It is expected to be in place from next March to March 2020.
The minister has allocated €6m extra for Bord Bia, to address market challenges relating to Brexit.
Farmers getting disadvantaged payments in areas of natural constraint (the ANC scheme) will get €4.5m, to ensure the maximum number of eligible participants is paid this year, including those who cannot establish eligibility (stocking density requirements, retention periods, etc) until the end of the year.
On savings on recruitment in his department, the minister warned that the embargo on recruitment for a number of years increased the age profile of his staff significantly, and staff are being lost rapidly, due to early retirements.
“I am advised there is no particular sector where there is a specific shortage, but it is across the department. We were hoping to get our staff numbers from just under 3,000 to 3,200 over the course of the past year.
“We are starting to make better progress but it is a case of running flat out to just about get ahead of the attrition rate,” said Mr Creed.
