Dáil Éireann Debate, Tuesday - 31 March 2015
162. Deputy Michael Fitzmaurice asked the Minister for Agriculture, Food and the Marine if his Department will consider splitting land parcels for the green low-carbon agri-environment scheme as it is not ideal for smaller farms as currently constituted; and if he will make a statement on the matter. [12750/15]
Amharc ar fhreagraThere is specific provision within the online GLAS system to split parcels. In fact, the facility is there to split an existing parcel into as many as three new parcels to deliver up to three separate area-based actions. By way of example, a 12 hectare parcel could be split to deliver a combination of Traditional Hay Meadow, Low Input Permanent Pasture and Wild Bird Cover, generating an annual payment of just under €5,000. The adviser can do this, online, on behalf of his or her client. Where a parcel is not split, one area based action may be selected together with certain linear actions and again it should be possible in most cases to choose a combination which delivers the best rate of payment to the farmer .
It is a key requirement in the approval process of the Rural Development Plan that all proposed actions are verifiable and controllable and my Department’s online system for GLAS has been designed with this very much in mind. This is the reason why only certain combinations of actions are allowed on each parcel , and these have been pre-populated into the online system which should significantly reduce error-rates later . The overall objective is to reduce the possibility of penalties for the farmer down the line.
