Éamon Ó Cuív (Galway West, Fianna Fail) | Oireachtas source

In regard to GLAS, the collective agreement as proposed will not work, and I believe it would be open to legal challenge. It was fascinating to hear officials from the Department say at the meeting the other day in Mount Cross that they are now belatedly seeking legal advice on that agreement. They also said that only 50% agreement is needed to lock-split a commonage. Had they checked with the land commission section of the Department they would know that 100% agreement is needed. Deputy Kyne will be aware of the recently divided commonage in Moycullen. It took 20 years to achieve this because of the Department's insistence that even where people obtained sites and got nominal shares in a commonage, this needed to be legally agreed by everybody. Deputy Kyne might give the Minister the reference of the commonage in question. The Minister will then see that it is not possible to act on majority in a commonage. It has always been the view of the Land Commission and the Department that 100% agreement is required. It is vital that the Department take responsibility, in terms of the legalities and cost, for drawing up the commonage plans for GLAS on each commonage and that it do so in partnership with the local farmers. What I am saying is that the Department should commission, prepare and pay for the plans in partnership with local farmers.

We also found out at the meeting in Mount Cross that if a farmer was to join a commonage through some mythical arrangement in order that he or she could join GLAS next year and if other farmers signed up to AEOS were to sit out the remaining two or three years of their AEOS plan because for one reason or another they did not want to join GLAS next year, when they did choose to do so, they would only be paid under GLAS for the remaining two or three years from the date the first farmer joined. That is what was said at the meeting in Mount Cross. That is totally unfair and will set neighbour against neighbour. A farmer currently in AEOS will not cut off his nose to spite his face and allow another farmer who left REPS to sign up to GLAS, because in doing so he would lose two or three years' payments.

Another amazing statement is that payment under GLAS amounts to €5,000. The payment per hectare is €120. As such, to get €5,000 one would have to have 42 hectares. Farmers with low single farm payments have small farms. Despite what is said, there are few enormous farmers in Connemara. The vast majority of farmers there have small farms.

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