Dáil Éireann Debate, Thursday - 8 October 2026
7. Deputy Eamon Scanlon asked the Minister for Agriculture, Food and the Marine if he will review the 2025 complementary income support for young farmers penalty provisions, given that a young farmer may be required to repay moneys they never received; and if he will amend the provisions to ensure that penalties are fair and proportionate. [70782/26]
View answerI thank Deputy Scanlon for raising this important matter. Under the current CAP, approximately 7,000 successful young farmers have been paid an average of €38 million each year in supports under the complementary income support for young farmers scheme, CISYF. Young farmers who seek to benefit from the CISYF are required to demonstrate financial and managerial control of the holding. This is an important provision that shows the young farmer is actually the person farming. My Department implements an inspection regime and proportionate penalties to ensure that funds are directed to the genuine applicant.
Under the previous young farmers scheme from 2018 to 2022, a number of advisory measures with very limited penalties were put in place in an effort to address concerns about cases that were observed of applicants who could not show financial and managerial control of the farm. Unfortunately, these advisory measures did not resolve the numbers of these cases observed. As a result, the new CISYF scheme from 2023 required the introduction of further measures to address this issue. The current 100% financial penalty was one such measure that was introduced in 2023. Prior to the introduction of the penalty in 2023, my Department met farming stakeholders to set out the background to its introduction and, ultimately, this change was approved in Ireland's CAP strategic plan.
I have ensured that in the application process and all documentation, the existence of this penalty is made clear at the time of application. In addition, an information note issues to all CISYF applicants setting out information on the possible financial penalty, alongside a penalty calculation example. Furthermore, details of the requirement to demonstrate financial and managerial control of the holding are included in presentations to applicants, registered agricultural agents and farming organisations regularly.
In simple terms, in the same way farmers get inspected and audited, my Department gets inspected and audited by Europe as to how we administer funds. This was an area where there was a large amount of non-compliance. If we continue to have non-compliance in a scheme and we do not address it, we cannot continue to have that scheme in the next CAP. The measures are here to safeguard this scheme.
I fully accept the need for inspections and that applications must comply with the rules. However, where a young farmer fails an inspection, they can receive no payment and still face substantial financial penalty based on the payment they would have received. Would the Minister accept that requiring a young farmer to effectively repay money they never received is disproportionate, and will he review the penalty provisions?
I have outlined why we have penalties in a space like this. It is to safeguard the integrity of a scheme. With co-funded EU schemes, we have to be able to demonstrate that the money is going to the people to whom it is supposed to go and that they are carrying out the actions they have signed up to. There is a contract when somebody applies for a scheme like this.
Alongside the implementation of the penalty, my Department amended the procedure for inspection to allow for materiality in the process, that is, where a small mistake would not cause a penalty. Notwithstanding this, a substantial number of young farmer applicants are still failing to demonstrate financial and managerial control as head of the holding.
The CISYF is allocated a minimum of 3%, or €35 million, of the CAP Pillar 1 direct payments funding. My Department has a fundamental obligation to ensure that support is targeted to young farmers who meet the scheme requirements, particularly regarding financial and managerial control.
We work very closely with applicants, but I do not plan to amend these provisions while the number of cases failing the inspection process remains high. We need to keep the integrity of this scheme to be able to have one in the next CAP.
I have a case in my constituency that demonstrates the problem. A young farmer was deemed ineligible following an inspection. There is no problem with that. They received no payment under the scheme but they have now been hit with a penalty of over €7,000 calculated on the payments they would have received. If that amount is not paid, interest accrues and the penalty can ultimately be recouped from future departmental payments. The farmer was asked to pay this money. He could not afford to pay it but it will be deducted from further payments. I am not disputing the Department's right to carry out inspections, nor am I suggesting that somebody who does not meet the scheme conditions should receive payment, but surely losing the entire payment is already a significant consequence. It is difficult to justify then demanding over €7,000 from a young farmer based on money that was never paid to them in the first place. It is not fair or proportionate.
I do not know the finer details of the example of the case the Deputy provides, so I will talk in general terms. In 2023, before my time in the Department, the Department amended the procedure for the CISYF inspection to allow for small mistakes and technical mistakes to not be subject to a fine or severe penalty. The issue, however, is the level of non-compliance here whereby farmers are not able to show financial control or managerial control over the holding. That is what they are being paid for. They are getting EU money, co-funded by the State, to support them in that process. If a significant number of applications are not able to demonstrate that, then for us to continue to have a scheme in the next CAP and beyond, we have to be able to show that the scheme is doing what it says on the tin or what it was designed to do. Everybody is very clearly made aware at the start of the process of the penalties if they do not conform with the broader details of the scheme. That is really important to make sure we can have the scheme into the future.
