Dáil Éireann Debate, Tuesday - 3 November 2015
428. Deputy Éamon Ó Cuív asked the Minister for Agriculture, Food and the Marine the number of farmers who have, to date, been officially informed that they have been accepted into the green low carbon agri-environment scheme; the date from which all contracts in tranche 1 will be operable; the average payment per year, approved for the farmers notified to date; and if he will make a statement on the matter. [37775/15]
View answerAlmost 27,000 farmers applied for GLAS in tranche 1. The issuing of approval letters to approximately 24,500 participants has commenced. This process will be completed in the next few days. Of these, some 90% will receive a 1 October 2015 commencement date and the other 10% will receive a 1 January 2016 commencement date. The 10% are farmers who are currently in REPS or AEOS. The remaining applications (almost 2,500) have validation queries raised on them, which are being examined systematically by my Department. I expect the vast bulk of these will be processed very shortly.
The information sought on the average payment will not be available until the pre-payment validations are completed later this month.
