Charlie McConalogue (Donegal, Fianna Fail) | Oireachtas source

As the Deputy will know, 35,000 farmers were due to leave GLAS at the end of this year. Importantly, the recent budget provides funding to ensure that GLAS can roll over for those farmers to enable them to continue in it next year. Obviously, a number of farmers are outside GLAS and are not in any scheme. The intention is to put in place a pilot scheme for a number of those farmers, which will be an indicator in terms of what the future scheme will look like and which will help inform what the successor scheme to GLAS will be. The new pilot scheme will be targeted at non-GLAS farmers and will be designed in a way that will be reflective of what measures may form the successor to GLAS. Out of the €79 million in funding, measures will be introduced which will be accessible to all farmers, both to those in GLAS and those who are not in a scheme, and in that way they will be more openly available to them.

See this speech in context