Martin Kenny (Sligo-Leitrim, Sinn Fein) | Oireachtas source

I am very glad to see the Minister of State, Deputy Doyle, in the Chamber. The issue I am raising is about green low-carbon agri-environment scheme, GLAS, payments. The 6,000 or more farmers waiting for their GLAS money are waiting for their 2016 payments, and we are now nearly at the end of 2017. I am given to understand that a lot of the reason for this is to do with nutrient management plans which have not yet been submitted or have been delayed in being submitted. There are a couple of issues in this, and one of them that certainly comes to mind for me is there were huge difficulties over the summer and last spring with the portal and computer system the Department was using for accepting these nutrient management plans. This seems to be one of the main reasons for the delays in getting this done. This brings me back to an issue we have often raised here, which is the Department of Agriculture, Food and the Marine seems to have some problem with its IT systems and what is happening in this respect.

We also have coming up very soon the issue of the commonage framework plans, which also are supposed to be submitted or people will not get their money. As the Minister of State knows, because he lives in a mountainous part of the world in County Wicklow, a lot of farmers on commonage will have to do up this framework plan and submit it. The plans have to be in by 31 October and yet the portal to submit the plan only opened up on 1 October. We understand there is a bit of a row going on between private planners and Teagasc, as there was in regard to the nutrient management plans, because the private planners have to get access to it through Teagasc. There are a lot of problems there, the reason for which is poor foresight, because they were not sorted out in the beginning and worked through.

I draw the Minister of State's attention to the commonage framework plans. I am delighted the Minister of State is here because he has a greater understanding of this than the Minister. With all due respect to the Minister, Deputy Creed, he is from a part of the world where commonage plans are not as common. As the Minister of State knows, one of the things required for the framework plans is that if, for example, there are ten parties on the commonage they have to come up with a plan, they work together. They may not all have the same planner, but only one planner has to submit the plan, so they have to co-operate to do that. Several parties to the commonage may not be in GLAS at all. There may also be adjoining much of the commonage land big tracts of forestry because the commonage is on a mountain,. Certainly, in my part of the world that is one of the major problems. The forest companies will not fence the mountain, so we end up in a situation where people are in a commonage plan where one of the conditions is they must graze the mountain to a certain level. The people have to put sheep on the mountain to graze it, but the sheep do not stay on the mountain because they go back down through the forestry and away with them. Despite this, the forestry companies will not fence the area concerned.

These practical problems are coming up for farmers, and while the plan may look very well on paper, implementing it in reality will be very difficult and many of the farmers are fearful. They put in these plans and everything looks great, but when it comes down to it, they may not be able to manage it the way it is set out in the plan because much of the mountain is outside of their control.

The issue which I raise regarding the GLAS payments is a reflection of this. If, because of the nutrient management plans, we have this hold-up, what kind of a hold-up will we have in future with the framework plans? The whole GLAS situation is a bit of a mess in this regard.

There are approximately 50,000 farmers in GLAS and there is an average payment of just under €4,000 per farmer. This shows an underspend last year of more than €50 million, because €1,000 by 50,000 farmers is €50 million. What is the possibility of reopening the scheme to new applicants to use up this underspend, which clearly will be there this year again? We find very few farmers reach the €5,000 spoken about in the beginning as the average payment, and it clearly is not. The average payment is under €4,000 per farmer. There is space to open up the scheme to more farmers and allow them in to enhance their income.

See this speech in context