Mr. Aidan O'Driscoll:

This is an area where there is a lot of commentary at present. It is a fairly contested area. I will make a couple of points. Again, I do not want people to misinterpret this, but with these schemes we are way ahead of other member states. One of our neighbouring countries or regions has only launched its agri-environment scheme this year. We launched the new agri-environment scheme in 2015.

Second, of course, the great majority of people on GLAS have been paid - with 38,000 in the scheme and €105 million paid to 30,000 so far - but our systems do indicate that there are issues in respect of the outstanding claims. A total of 7,000 farmers have yet to be paid. Technically, it is an advance payment but, anyway, 7,000 of them have yet to be paid. In the last two weeks alone, €8 million was paid to 2,250 farmers. Therefore, we are whittling that figure down as rapidly as we can. In quite a few cases, we need material back from the farmer. To give an example I was given the other day, some farmers under GLAS are claiming a payment for low-emission slurry spreading, which is an important action in climate change emissions, air quality etc. In that group that has not been paid, 300 of them have been identified who have not submitted the necessary evidence. They have indicated they are claiming it but they have not submitted the necessary evidence. They have been contacted and asked to send in the form.

There are other issues. For example, again, to go back to these famous land parcels, if our system finds that there is something different between our record of land parcels and what the claimant has submitted, the matter has to be looked at. It has to be eyeballed, as we say. It might be when our staff look at the detail they think they find that it is okay, it is a small issue or they understand why the issue is arising. It might be that they have to go back to the farmer. What we are trying to do, and where I will put my hand up a bit, is better communications to the farmers as to what exactly the issue is, and we are trying to deal with that.