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IFA President Padraig Walshe has described the REPS payment
situation as totally unacceptable and he called on Agriculture
Minister Mary Coughlan to resolve the matter.
According to Mr Walshe, already, up to 6,000 REPS 2 and REPS
3 farmers have had their payments held up - together with
over 600 farmers who joined REPS 4 since the start of this
year.
"Failure to make payment to this group of farmers to-date,
is leading to a cash-flow crisis on many of these farms. The
problem will deepen unless a satisfactory resolution is found
by Minister Coughlan" - Mr Walshe said.
The IFA President stated that one of the features of the
REPS scheme has been the early payment system, which was put
in place to meet the high cost of compliance of the Environmental
Plan, which commences once the farmer joins the scheme. Mr.
Walshe said the REPS scheme has worked well in Ireland and
significant environmental gains have been made on the 60,000
farms that participate in the scheme.
"It is now of vital importance that the payment issue
is resolved without any further delays to avoid a severe cash-flow
crisis developing on farms" - he concluded.
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