asked the Minister for Agriculture the cost of carrying out headage inspections in severely handicapped areas for the purpose of headage payments.

9.

asked the Minister for Agriculture if considerable savings could be made by introducing a spot check system rather than a complete inspection in respect of the payment of headage grants in the severely handicapped areas.

It is proposed to take Questions Nos. 8 and 9 together.

The estimated cost of carrying out inspections under the various headage schemes in the severely handicapped areas in 1983 is about £1½ million or some 2.5 per cent of the grants totalling £63½ million payable to farmers in those areas.

As regards spot checks, I would refer the Deputy to my written reply on 3 May to an earlier question by him. In view of the need to guard against fraud and because of EEC requirements particularly in respect of the calf premium scheme, it is not possible now to rely on spot checks although they were used to a limited extent in 1982. Every effort is, of course, made to simplify administration of the seven different types of livestock headage schemes now in operation and, in fact, considerable operational savings have been achieved through the use of composite application forms, common reference dates and single on-farm inspections for different schemes.

The Minister mentioned £5 million. Does that take into account the fact that most of the officers employed will be sitting in their offices because of the restriction on this and other schemes? Is their full salary taken into account?

The Deputy's question relates to the working of the scheme this year. There are 130 permanent inspection staff plus a total of 68 borrowed from other Departments and we take due note of their salaries. Every effort has been made to ensure that for most farmers only one visit from an agricultural officer will be required. This is a big step forward. When one considers that the total headage payments for the entire country is £103 million this year it gives some idea of the tremendous number of inspections one would have if they were not channelled and done in a programmed manner.

Would the Minister not agree that those 68 men are unemployed because they have no work in the FMS offices?

Would the Minister agree that the inspection costs at least as much again because of the fact that farmers have to be involved as well as agricultural inspectors? The disturbance to lifestock and the disruption of routine on the farm involves a serious cost that could be avoided if spot checks were carried out as they are in Northern Ireland. If that were carried through and if severe penalties were imposed there is no question but that immense savings could be made.

There is a very basic difference between the way we operate here and the way they operate in Northern Ireland. They have a statutory system of herd and flock books which they have used over the years. We have not got that. The nearest we have come to it is the herd book that we had to have this year for the calf premium scheme. There was a very enlightened approach taken to farmers who had less than four cows for inspection last year. Over 14,000 herd owners with very small herds were asked to send the cards to the local offices without an inspection. I regret to say that in the majority of cases it just did not work out. That was a major attempt to streamline the business and for a variety of reasons it did not work out.