Farm organisations have reacted angrily to the demand by the EU that their farms be subject to unannounced inspections to ensure they are entitled to the EU single farm payment.
Under the old system, farmers were given at least 48 hours notice that their farms would be inspected for cross-compliance with EU regulations for the farm payment.
Last year farmers were paid €1.16 billion under the single farm payment which incorporates payments from all previous schemes into one cheque.
In 2005, as a result of the inspections, €337,000 in payments was withheld from farmers because they failed to meet the necessary criteria laid down in the statutory management requirement.
Although the rate of inspections for on-farm cross-compliance in Ireland last year was only 1 per cent, the Department of Agriculture negotiated this down to 8,000 inspections this year, 2,000 fewer than last year.
Last May, Minister for Agriculture Mary Coughlan announced this reduction. In July she defended the level of inspection here and said that as fewer than 1 per cent of farmers incurred penalties, this could not be regarded as a harsh regime.
However, last week it emerged that the EU had demanded that Department of Agriculture inspectors inspect a percentage of farms for cross-compliance without any warning.
As more than 1,300 of the 8,000 inspections due this year are to take place in the next two months, the farm organisations are angered that some of these will be unannounced and that they will cover the new regulations on the handling of farm manures.
Irish Farmers Association president Pádraig Walshe said the unannounced checks were "totally unacceptable" especially as they covered the new nitrates directive which only came into law on August 1st.
A spokesman for the Irish Creamery Milk Suppliers' Association said the unannounced cross-compliance checks on farms went contrary to all agreements with the department on the issue.
"We had successfully argued at the partnership talks that because there are so many part-time farmers now and the penalties are so severe for being in breach of regulations," the spokesman said, "that it is only common justice that notice be given to farmers."
Tom Dunne, chairman of the IFA's industrial committee, said farmers had still not been given any information on how they must comply with the management system under the terms of the nitrates directive.
"Farmers will be facing inspections under the new nitrates regulations without any information on cross-compliance and that is simply not fair," he said.