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

Farmers will refer to them as their single farm payment applications. The deadline for applications under the basic payment scheme, as it is now called, is 29 May, which is a week later than the deadline under this scheme. We do not want the same closing date for both GLAS and the basic payment. That would really drive planners over the edge because they would have to try to do everything at the same time. We have tried to stagger these deadlines by leaving a week between the two. We want to get all the GLAS applications in before all the final basic payment applications come in the following week. If we pushed the GLAS deadline back by a week, we would push it on top of the basic payment deadline. In such circumstances, I would have to put that back by a week as well.

This is putting even more pressure on the Department to get basic payments out as early as we can in October. I am trying to ensure the vast majority of farmers get payments as early as they can. We will reopen GLAS in September so people who for whatever reason, such as not accessing planners, planners having difficulties or problems with eligibility, will have a bit more time to do it and will be able to enter the scheme in September. I want to give the signal we do not plan to extend the deadlines for either the basic payment or GLAS at this stage.

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