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

One of the unforeseen delays in getting GLAS off the ground could be that farmers will look for a little extra time to get their plans in. The Minister needs to get 30,000 applications; 25,000 or 20,000 will not be good enough. There could be several unforeseen delays. Are we still in the situation the Minister outlined previously such that he cannot allow GLAS to start until this entire tranche of plans has been assessed because of the issue raised by Deputy Fitzmaurice, namely, that they will have to be graded to see who is in and who is out? There can be no early starters; everybody must start on the same day. Has there been any movement on that situation to allow, for example, tier 1 applicants to commence a little earlier and so on?

Does the Minister expect the genomics scheme to be covered in the letter of comfort he is seeking? If it is not and if there is any delay in agreeing the final rural development programme, farmers will see a large hole in their pockets next year.

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