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

-----the maximum payment in GLAS plus is €7,000. We want to try to get as many farmers as possible up to those maximums. They have to apply the rules. They get payments for certain actions they do. More than 50% of this is European money. The European Commission will come and audit GLAS to make sure it gets value for money. The scheme we have put together will allow many farmers, if not most farmers, to get close to the maximum. Certainly, the average will be slightly below that. Some farmers will receive GLAS payments of less than €5,000 because they have a lack of land or do not want to choose some of the actions. We still plan to spend €20 million on GLAS this year. We hope to accept a further 10,000 applicants, in addition to the 25,000 applicants in this round, in the application process that will start in September with payments to be made from 1 January. The plan is that by next year, there will be approximately 35,000 farmers in GLAS. Obviously, there is flexibility either side of those numbers.

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