Department balances the books on GLAS payments

CLOSE to €17.5m in GLAS balancing payments has been paid out by the Department of Agriculture to 28,000 farmers over the last few days, with further payments to issue over the next week.

This is the final 15pc of the 2017 payment and completes the total remittance to most farmers for GLAS actions.

However, the Department conceded that close to 17,000 GLAS farmers will not be eligible for payments, with delays in the submission of nutrient management plans and commonage management plans being identified as the main problems.

The Minister for Agriculture, Michael Creed, said the Department’s priority was to continue to make payments to other applicants as they become eligible.

“I would encourage all participants to arrange with their advisor to have these outstanding actions completed as soon as possible so that we may make the payment to them.

“Today’s announcement means that the GLAS scheme has now paid out over €53m to Irish farmers since the start of the year and over €350m since its commencement,” Minister Creed stated.

But the INHFA was critical of the Department’s handling of GLAS programme and pointed out that the 17,000 farmers who are ineligible for payment represents around one-third of the 50,000 in the scheme.

“The payments and application process for GLAS has been a fiasco from day one, and the responsibility for that lies squarely with the Department,” an INHFA spokesman said.

“Given the terrible year that people on the land have just put down, farmers should not be penalised financially because of a faulty application process or due to delays on the part of planners,” he added.