Michael Creed (Cork North West, Fine Gael) | Oireachtas source

I am not happy that this is the case. It is an embarrassment to me and the Department that this issue continues.

We have no vested interest in holding onto moneys that are due. It is an extraordinarily complex scheme with more than 30 individual actions into which a farmer can opt under GLAS. When one cross references that with basic payment applications and individual plots, it becomes a very complex scheme to administer from an IT point of view. We have applied additional resources but it is taking a great deal longer than we had hoped to resolve the matter.

I was not at the farmers' charter meeting recently but for clarity I note that I understand that the commitment that was given was that all approved applicants would be paid by the end of April. I emphasise "approved". We continue to engage with a number of farmers in respect of outstanding documentation which is an issue on their side. I would have preferred to have been able to identify and correspond with those farmers earlier. I appreciate the financial consequences for those individual holdings and the fact that it makes budgeting difficult if one is expecting every week that a cheque for up to €5,000 will arrive. I assure farmers that we are doing everything possible. We have written to 1,500 of the 3,000 farmers in GLAS who are waiting and I hope we will have corresponded by the end of the week with the overwhelming majority of the remaining 1,500.

On the Deputy's specific question, the number of farmers currently active in GLAS I is 25,460 and in GLAS II is 11,345. The number of farmers approved in the most recent GLAS tranche is 13,600.

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