Eugene Murphy
Question:68. Deputy Eugene Murphy asked the Minister for Agriculture, Food and the Marine the number of persons awaiting GLAS payments; and if he will make a statement on the matter. [6909/18]
View answerTuesday, 13 February 2018
Questions (68)
Written answers
The GLAS scheme is the most popular scheme ever run under a Rural Development Programme in Ireland. The original target of 50,000 participants was surpassed well ahead of the targeted date - such is the popularity of the scheme. Given that the first approvals under the scheme run from 1 October 2015 it is a remarkable achievement to have exceeded this target within a period of 15 months. GLAS 2017 advance payments have now issued in just under 43,800 cases, representing 93% of all farmers that are eligible for the payment. This payment is worth over €157m to Irish farmers. Payments are continuing every week.
In approximately 2,700 of the outstanding cases, applicants remain ineligible for payment until they complete the steps they must take before the Department can process their payment. The general issues preventing payments taking place include the non-submission of nutrient management plans, commonage management plans, low emission slurry spreading forms, rare breeds forms and 2017 BPS application issues that remain to be resolved.
My Department is communicating further with those affected to encourage them to take the required action that will allow their payment to be processed. The remaining applications continue to be processed with payments issuing on a weekly basis.
There are currently in the region of 1,200 farmers awaiting their GLAS 2016 balance payment. Of these 137 will be paid their balance payment in the coming days. The main reason payment has not issued is failure to submit a Nutrient Management Plan MP. Other reasons for delays include cases where a change has been made to the case between the advance and balance payment stage, cases that have come to light during processing that require further investigation by the Department and inspection related issues.