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.
GLAS payments cannot issue until all regulatory requirements are met. Each GLAS payment claim must be put through a suite of checks for each action and where any individual check fails the issues must be investigated and resolved before being cleared for payment.
In addition to the checks outlined above, in approximately 2,700 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 prevent further delays to payments.
Details of GLAS payments to Carlow and Kilkenny applicants are as follows.
|
GLAS 1
|
|
GLAS 2
|
|
GLAS 3
|
|
|
Total
|
|
County
|
Advance Paid
|
Advance Not Paid
|
Advance Paid
|
Advance Not Paid
|
Advance Paid
|
Advance Not Paid
|
Cases
|
Advance Paid
|
Advance Not Paid
|
Carlow
|
246
|
31
|
107
|
20
|
116
|
10
|
530
|
469
|
61
|
Kilkenny
|
380
|
48
|
181
|
26
|
159
|
31
|
825
|
720
|
105
|