Simon Coveney (Cork South Central, Fine Gael) | Oireachtas source

Let me be clear on this. We are going to open GLAS in February. We are not seeking, nor will we get, a separate letter of comfort for GLAS, rather we will have an understanding with the Commission on the detail of GLAS, following an exchange of e-mails and so forth. We have had a lot of face-to-face meetings with the officials in the Commission in order to get across the line the detail of what GLAS will look like and we are very close to achieving that. Once that is done we can then formally open GLAS so that farmers will be able to take on planners, put their plans in place and understand the detail of the application process in terms of what they have to do. While that process is going on, we will continue to work with the Commission to get our letter of comfort - which will cover GLAS and everything else - hopefully by the middle of next month. We will then start to open other schemes on the back of that letter of comfort. I have made the decision to open GLAS for applications in advance of that letter of comfort but only if we can get the agreement with the Commission on the details of the scheme, so that we can anticipate the letter of comfort and allow farmers to get the application process under way. As the Deputy has outlined, we need to get applications in, planners working and farmers planning for their GLAS applications so that we can complete the application process by the summer and open the scheme in the autumn.

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