The Department of Agriculture, Food and the Marine (DAFM) has told Agriland that the “development” of an IT system to pay ash forest owners compensation under the new €79.5 million support package “is under way”.
Last month the government confirmed that as part of the support package a climate performance action payment of €5,000/ha will be available to ash plantation owners who have or will replant under a departmental reconstitution scheme.
However no details had previously been released on when this payment would be made.
DAFM has now confirmed that “payments will commence” when the IT system is in place.
But it has not provided a timeline of when these payments will start to landowners who have been impacted by ash dieback.
DAFM told Agriland: “The development of the relevant IT functionality for the climate action performance payment is under way, and payments will commence when this is completed”.
Forests
It is estimated that there were 15,897ha of grant-aided ash planted between 1990 and 2013 – more than three quarters of those ash forests are less than 5ha in size.
However around 6,000 ash forest owners have not yet submitted an application to join DAFM’s reconstitution scheme.
Meanwhile the department has confirmed that it is now “progressing the arrangements to implement the actions” set out in the latest ash dieback support package.
This includes the establishment of task force to implement an action plan which been set up as a subcommittee of the new forest strategy consultative committee.
It is expected that the first meeting of this taskforce will take place in the coming weeks.
Ash dieback
Separately the Sinn Féin spokesperson on Agriculture, Claire Kerrane, has queried how the climate performance action payment of €5,000/ha will be paid out to impacted ash plantation owners.
Deputy Kerrane said the government did not initially specify that the payment will “in fact be paid in three instalments with the final two paid four to five years after the initial one”.
She believes that this may be “misleading” for landowners who may have expected a payment of €5,000 “in one go”.
Deputy Kerrane said the the climate performance action payment of €5,000/ha will take the form of “an initial payment of €2,500 once a site is cleared and re-planted, and at the end of the premium, four years later, a payment of €1,250 and a further payment of €1,250 a year later”.