The Court of Appeal has set aside a High Court order requiring the Minister for Agriculture, Food and the Marine to pay farmer Michael O’Connor €124,431, with interest, over his 2010 Single Payment Scheme application.
In a judgment delivered on 29 November 2018, Mr Justice Michael Peart said the High Court was confined to deciding questions of law under the statutory appeal process. It could not use its discretion to award a payment after the appeals officer’s finding that land included in Mr O’Connor’s application was ineligible.
Mr O’Connor’s application was found to overstate eligible land, including a parcel of commonage. The appeals officer upheld the rejection of that parcel and a 5% sanction relating to cross-compliance breaches, but removed an administrative fine equivalent to the payment sought because he could not conclusively find that Mr O’Connor had intentionally over-declared land or artificially created conditions to obtain payment.
Mr O’Connor then challenged the appeals officer’s decision under section 11 of the Agriculture Appeals Act 2001, which permits an appeal to the High Court on a question of law. The High Court found that legal issues about inspection procedures and control reports had not been addressed by the appeals officer. It ordered the Minister to pay €124,431, representing payment for land the High Court considered eligible, while excluding the commonage and retaining the 5% sanction.
The Minister appealed. The Court of Appeal held that the High Court could not alter the outcome on the basis of procedural flaws once the appeals officer’s finding on land eligibility was properly supported by evidence. It said a challenge seeking to have the decision quashed over the inspection process could have been pursued by judicial review, but that remedy was not available through this statutory appeal.
The Court also held that the trial judge erred by considering whether Mr O’Connor should have had an opportunity to make submissions before a sanction was imposed. That issue had not been raised as a question of law in the originating notice of motion.
The appeal was allowed. The Court set aside the High Court findings that the Minister had misapplied EU regulations and that the appeals officer had erred in law, and also set aside the payment order and interest. It did not determine costs; it said the parties would be heard on the costs of both the High Court proceedings and the appeal.