Andrew Doyle (Wicklow, Fine Gael) | Oireachtas source

There are quite a number of in-depth and detailed questions. May I clarify that for the good agricultural and environmental condition, GAEC, there is a requirement of one ewe per 1.5 hectares for the basic payments scheme. If one is not going into GLAS, no plan is needed. That is a proposed requirement in the draft at present. The single plan comes into play for the purposes of the Pillar 2 GLAS payment.

There are locally led environment schemes which are also part of it, for example, in the Burren and others areas that may come forward. There are 160 participants in the Burren environment scheme, getting an average of €7,500 each, and that is done by mutual agreement. That is a further development. It will be specific and will require detailed plans and approvals.

The key point for applications to GLAS is that there will be a need, especially in light of the deeper and wider impacts that Deputy Kyne identified, for the Department to nominate someone and for that person or company to work with the existing planners. It will take some pooling to make it happen. The question being posed is that where a person with a basic payment scheme requirement does not intend to put his or her animals onto the commonage and that person makes an application under GLAS, is there some way of getting around that whereby he or she could nominate or allocate that stock number in order that the plan works and he or she keeps the entitlement? That appears to be the sort of line being pursued. I am trying to put in context the line of questioning that has come forward.