Denis said that the ‘social conditionality’ element introduced effectively means that farmers could end up paying twice for the same breach and is ‘demonstrably unfair’. It was a founding principle of any workable system that you could not be charged and punished twice under different headings for a single breach of a rule, he said. He added: “And yet this was plainly set out in the department’s announcement of the social conditionality element that will apply to the 2025 BISS.”
He explained that the the technical notice issued by the Department of Agriculture, Food and the Marine this week stated that ‘social conditionality means that an additional conditionality may be applied to farmers found to be in breach of certain legislation relating to workplace safety, employment standards, or the safe operation of in the workplace machinery. This standard will not involve any additional checks by the department but will be facilitated by cross-reporting from the Workplace Relations Commission (WRC) and the Health and Safety Authority (HSA)’.
“We continuously hear politicians telling us that they are going to simplify the system and eliminate duplication. If that’s the case, why have we ended up with this kind of duplication into an already overly complex system. The WRC and HSA have specific important responsibilities under legislation, and they have a job to do. Why is the department, already barely able to administer their own affairs and schemes, moving into these obviously separate areas?” he said.
He stated that the ICMSA does not understand or agree with a system that has farmers fined twice for the same breach. “This is blatant ‘double jeopardy’ and itself breaches one of the founding principles of Common Law: you can’t be tried twice for the same charge, and you can’t be punished twice for the same infringement. This can’t be right, and we’d ask the Department to look again very hard at what is blatantly a case of punishing twice for the same transgression.”