Dáil Éireann Debate, Tuesday - 13 February 2018
29. Deputy Willie Penrose asked the Minister for Agriculture, Food and the Marine his strategy to overcome intractable problems faced by thousands of farmers who still have not received GLAS payments; his views on the high level of complaints regarding the operation of GLAS payments; the actions he plans to take to address this; and if he will make a statement on the matter. [7226/18]
View answerThe Minister is aware of the perennial problem of delays in GLAS payments. Is the Department prepared to chronicle the problems that were identified in relation to the 2017 payments that were the cause of the significant delays and send them out to Teagasc advisers, agri-consultants and planning consultants to ensure that everyone who applies for GLAS payments and is entitled to them is paid in a timely fashion? Is it the case that an overly bureaucratic view or assessment is leading to delays over piddly-widdly things, as they say down the country?
Let me start by pointing out that, with regard to payments, 2017 was a record year with over €1.6 billion paid by my Department to farmers. On GLAS, given that the first approvals under the scheme run from October 2015 I consider it is a remarkable achievement to have exceeded the rural development programme target of 50,000 GLAS participants within a period of 15 months. Last year we paid out almost €200 million on GLAS and since the new year we have paid a further €22.8 million.
The overriding factor in the processing of all EU-funded schemes is to ensure that all regulatory requirements are respected in issuing payments. This includes the requirement that payments cannot commence until after 15 October annually.
As of today, there are 49,700 active participants in the GLAS scheme and 93% of those eligible have received their 2017 advance payment since these payments commenced. In addition, GLAS training payments to both participants and approved GLAS trainers have commenced with over €6.3 million issued to date.
Fewer than 6,000 cases continue to be processed of which approximately 2,700 are a matter for the GLAS participants themselves, and there is nothing my Department can do to pay those until they complete the necessary steps themselves. Payments are continuing as we speak and will continue until the remaining payments are cleared. My Department is communicating further with those affected to prevent further delays to payments. I expect the 2017 balance payments to commence by the end of May and appeal to all applicants to ensure that required documentation is submitted to facilitate these payments.
Updates are published weekly on my Department's website and clearly show that progress is being made in reducing outstanding cases. It is important that any such request from my Department to a GLAS participant is responded to as the information requested is essential to finalise all checks.
The Minister has not outlined the nature of the checks and the problems identified. Perhaps a lot of people in here do, but I do not hold any torch for the IFA. However, it has set up a service unit that is used by between 55 and 60 farmers a week. It identified between 800 and 900 farmers in the space of a few months. Surely to God a lot of people are in the system and not everybody comes into it new. There should be a freeflow system. I often think there is somebody in the Department trying to identify problems. The Minister said 3,500 people will not get a shilling until May. He said there are approximately 6,000 cases outstanding and 2,700 have to get back to the Department with little bits and pieces in terms of failure to provide nutrient plans, for example. What is the cause of delay for the remaining 3,300? The Minister outlined that there are approximately 49,700 active participants in the GLAS scheme and 43,200 of those have been paid.
Could the Minister indicate whether there is a problem with the famous computer that is in the Department? I have no time for computers. I still write letters in the old fashioned way.
That computer is famous. It caused many headaches and much heartache. I am unsure whether the Department ever got it fixed, but I would be grateful to find out whether it is playing a role again.
I do not accept that there is a significant information technology issue in the Department. The outstanding payments go through a series of regulatory checks. The green low-carbon agri-environment scheme is complicated. Multiple actions have to be compatible with individual plots on farm holdings which, in turn, have to be referenced to the basic payment application of the farmer. There is a degree of checking to ensure eligibility with the basic payment application. Plot actions then come into it for individual plots and so on. The Department is waiting for information from certain people, including information on nutrient management plans, commonage management plans, rare breed actions and low emission slurry spreading. That is primarily what is sought by the Department. We suspect a cohort of applicants have disengaged from the process entirely and are no longer active. We are in the process of trying to communicate with them directly and through their advisers to see if they are still participating in the scheme or have, in fact, walked away from it. In some cases there has been no action or communication on the application for several years since the scheme was introduced in October 2015. We suspect some of them are in that category.
I do not have the figure for last Friday, although I suspect it is on the Department's website, but on the previous Friday we made in the region of 1,200 or 1,300 payments. We are clearing payments as quickly as we cross-check references. When a farmer submits all of his or her details of low emission slurry spreading or rare actions, we have to cross-check all of them with the plots. We are clearing them as quickly as we can. There is no comparable problem to the problem this time last year with GLAS.
The Minister will be aware of the comments of the European Commissioner, Mr. Hogan, who several months ago said one of his aims was to streamline and minimise the level of bureaucracy and regulation which is strangling people. A farmer would want to have a PhD to get through it, given nutrient plans, the need for cross-compliance and everything else. Most of this stuff is absolutely silly. I have a brother at home who is farming. I would not take it up now and I have a master's degree in agriculture. Half of it is nonsense and it is time to cut it out. I have a case in which a farmer has land that is about 15 cm away from where trees should be sowed and the decision in the case is now being appealed. The Minister should cut out the nonsense and tell those responsible to cop themselves on. It makes no sense to put stuff back to within a few centimetres of where it is. That is the problem and the reason for the difficulty. If a case does not fit into the nice seamless system in the Department, the officials are on the back of the unfortunate farmer in the middle of somewhere. A farmer in suckler cow country does not have much income at this time of the year and getting a few shillings under this scheme could be critical.
It is a complex scheme to administer and I take the point the Deputy is making. One of the objectives the Commissioner has set for himself in the context of the CAP post-2020 is greater simplification. We could all do with revisiting and embracing that objective.
I make the point that the Commission carried out a public consultation process which showed that there was considerable public support for the Common Agricultural Policy and providing an adequate budget for it. However, it was linked with the fact that the Commission wanted farmers to meet greater ambition in respect of sustainability of the environment. That is our flagship scheme in this area. Simplification will be a key objective in the revision of schemes. Payments will have to reflect the outcomes farmers are achieving. I take the point made. We are working flat out, as we receive the necessary information from individual farmers, to pay them as quickly as possible. However, there is a cohort from whom we are awaiting information.
