143 Mr. D. Carey asked the Minister for Agriculture, Food and Rural Development the number of farmers in County Clare awaiting approval or payment under the new farm building schemes who are now outside the agreed protocol time. [6992/02]

As of 22 February, a total of 283 applications had been received from farmers in County Clare under the various on farm investment schemes operated by my Department. Most of these have actually been approved by this stage, or are awaiting additional information from the applicant, but there are a small number of cases, 11 in all, where approval to commence work has not issued within the time limit set out in the protocol on direct payments to farmers, that is, within three months of receipt of a valid application. This is an unavoidable consequence of the continuing requirement to deploy some technical staff to foot and mouth duties. There were no applications awaiting payment which are outside the deadlines set for these schemes under the protocol.