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Good News- Coveney Announces First Payments of AEOS 2 for 2011

office 2012, Agriculture
Good News- Coveney Announces First Payments of AEOS 2 for 2011

Good news for farmers in Wicklow and around the country as the Minister for Agriculture, Food and the Marine, Simon Coveney TD, has today announced that payments for farmers in  Agri-Environment Options Scheme (AEOS )2 will issue directly to farmer’s bank accounts as and from next week”.

Some 6,900 farmers applied for AEOS2 by the closing date of 16 May last year. Under EU rules all administrative checks for all applications had to be completed before the first payments could issue. In accordance with governing EU rules, payments issue in two 2 tranches, i.e. 75% and 25%. These 75% payments for 2011 will now issue to all farmers whose applications are cleared at this stage.

While administrative checks have been carried out in respect of all applications received, there are outstanding issues and information awaited in relation to a number of cases which must be resolved before these applications can be cleared for payment. These query cases will be resolved as soon as possible with payments being made on an ongoing basis. Department officials will be in contact with farmers regarding outstanding issues.
Pre-printed Capital Investment forms will issue over the next two weeks to farmers who undertook capital investments under AEOS 2.  The Minister encouraged farmers to return these forms by the required date in order to facilitate year two payments. The payments in respect of 2012 are to commence later in the year.

Budget Increase Secures the future of Community Enterprise Schemes

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In the Budget the Department of Social Protection announced a 66% cut in the training and materials grant for CE schemes from €1,500 to €500 per person on each scheme. This caused problems with many CE schemes saying they could not live on the reduced budget.

These schemes include the National Disabled Angling Park scheme in Co. Wicklow, which came near to closure  in January due to lack of funding.  Other CE schemes in C. Wicklow include Wicklow Town Community Employment Project.

Having attended a briefing on Community Employment schemes only last week, I welcome the results of the Ministers financial review of these schemes and her decision to increase the budget by 9.5million to €20.5million.

This increase in the training and material CE budget means that the number of places available on CE can remain constant at 23,300 including supervisors.

This decision recognises the important work that is carried by CE schemes across the country and the valuable contribution these schemes make in local communities.

Under these new budgetary measures the maximum materials and training grant available to schemes is €1,000 per place per year. The minimum amount allocated for training out of this is €190 per place per year under the National Training Fund (NTF). The budget allocations to each scheme will be based on the specific level of costs of each scheme.

Each Community Employment scheme has been notified of its revised Material and Training allocation based on the amounts recommended by the Department. There is an appeals process for any scheme who considers that their Materials and Training Grant will not cover the cost of their CE scheme.