Éamon Ó Cuív (Galway West, Fianna Fail)
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132. To ask the Minister for Agriculture, Food and the Marine when the new rural development plan is due to be agreed; the dates the various schemes will open under the plan in 2015; and if he will make a statement on the matter. [6830/15]

Éamon Ó Cuív (Galway West, Fianna Fail)
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As the Minister knows, we are way behind target in obtaining approval for the rural development plan. Will he confirm when he expects to receive the letters of comfort? I am not asking about agreement on the full plan because we understand he is going to obtain approval for letters of comfort. Has he obtained this approval or when is he likely to obtain it? Will the letters cover all schemes? In other words, will they cover genomics, GLAS, TAMS, discussion groups, health schemes and the Leader programme, etc. or will they be scheme specific? When does the Minister expect to be able to announce the opening of the various schemes?

Simon Coveney (Cork South Central, Fine Gael)
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First, I see in the media today that the Deputy is seeking to change the structure of Pillar 1 payments. If we try to do this, we will still be here next year trying to obtain letters of comfort. We are close to reaching agreement with the Commission. The intention of trying to get letters of comfort by the middle of next month is still on track and that is when we anticipate we will be able to get them. Intense negotiations are taking place today, as they did yesterday and last week. We are negotiating not only with the Commissioner for Agriculture and Rural Development but also with the Commissioner for the Environment and the Commissioner for Climate Action and so on.

I hope to have agreement finalised in principle on the detail of GLAS in the next few days, if possible, in order that we can open the scheme in advance of receiving a letter of comfort next month. We then hope to receive a letter of comfort next month for all of the rural development programme, not just individual schemes. That is our intention, but if something goes wrong in the meantime, I will be up-front about it. We are working night and day to try to get this done, but we have a big partner, the Commission, which needs to be satisfied.

There are 118 rural development programmes before the Commission at the moment but only nine of them have been approved. Most of those involve much smaller and simpler schemes than ours. In that context, one can understand why we are pushing as hard as we can. I thank the Commission for its help on this because it is swamped at the moment, with many countries pushing to get their rural development programmes across the line. We will continue to work with the Commission to reassure it on both the big and small schemes. We are very close to doing that and I am hopeful that we will be able to get our letter of comfort by the middle of March. That will allow us to start opening the schemes in a staggered way after that.

Éamon Ó Cuív (Galway West, Fianna Fail)
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I ask the Minister to confirm the report on agriland.iethat a further 18 rural development programmes were approved in recent days, bringing the total to 27. Is the Minister saying that between now and the end of this month he hopes to have a letter of comfort for GLAS specifically and to open that scheme, with the rest of the schemes opening some time in mid-March or is he saying that GLAS will not open in February but in March? In the event of the scheme not opening until March it is unlikely, under the system the Minister is pursuing, that any payment will be made to any farmer under GLAS in 2015.

Simon Coveney (Cork South Central, Fine Gael)
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Let me be clear on this. We are going to open GLAS in February. We are not seeking, nor will we get, a separate letter of comfort for GLAS, rather we will have an understanding with the Commission on the detail of GLAS, following an exchange of e-mails and so forth. We have had a lot of face-to-face meetings with the officials in the Commission in order to get across the line the detail of what GLAS will look like and we are very close to achieving that. Once that is done we can then formally open GLAS so that farmers will be able to take on planners, put their plans in place and understand the detail of the application process in terms of what they have to do. While that process is going on, we will continue to work with the Commission to get our letter of comfort - which will cover GLAS and everything else - hopefully by the middle of next month. We will then start to open other schemes on the back of that letter of comfort. I have made the decision to open GLAS for applications in advance of that letter of comfort but only if we can get the agreement with the Commission on the details of the scheme, so that we can anticipate the letter of comfort and allow farmers to get the application process under way. As the Deputy has outlined, we need to get applications in, planners working and farmers planning for their GLAS applications so that we can complete the application process by the summer and open the scheme in the autumn.

Éamon Ó Cuív (Galway West, Fianna Fail)
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I thank the Minister for that clarification. I ask him to confirm that he expects to announce GLAS next Friday or Saturday in Castlebar. Will the Minister consider allowing farmers in tier 1 and tier 2 to access GLAS early, on a first come, first served basis? That would allow them to get going and to receive a significant payment this year. I propose this because it is highly unlikely that the number of tier 1 and tier 2 farmers will exceed the Minister's threshold of 30,000 farmers to be let into GLAS this year. I would prefer a first come, first served basis for everyone this year because the scheme is so late but failing that, will he consider it on a limited basis for tier 1 and tier 2 farmers? In other words, farmers should submit plans and if they are in tier 1 or tier 2, they will be allowed to go ahead immediately so that payments can be made. If the Minister does not do so, he will not spend the €20 million he has set aside in this year's budget for the GLAS scheme.

Simon Coveney (Cork South Central, Fine Gael)
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Let us think about the practicalities of this for a moment.

If I was to announce today-----

Éamon Ó Cuív (Galway West, Fianna Fail)
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On Friday.

Simon Coveney (Cork South Central, Fine Gael)
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-----that 30,000 farmers would be accepted into GLAS on a first come, first served basis, the application process would be chaotic. There would be massive pressure on planners to be the first in and it would be totally unmanageable. Deputy Ó Cuív knows that as a former Minister who has managed schemes like this before. I can never remember 30,000 farmers coming into a scheme in one go, even in REPs. We must leave a sufficient window to allow planners to make plans for their clients in an orderly manner and make sure the application process is properly managed. Otherwise, we will have flawed and rushed plans, people will be disqualified when they should not be and this will lead to appeals. We are trying to have an orderly opening of a five-year scheme, getting as many farmers as we can in tiers 1, 2 and 3. The only way to do so is to be very clear on the opening and closing dates to give people space to get in applications. Then, we will assess them fairly and equally and we will announce who is in and who is out in that process.

Éamon Ó Cuív (Galway West, Fianna Fail)
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The Minister could do a hybrid. I will discuss it with the Minister again because there is a way of getting people in and getting the money out.

Simon Coveney (Cork South Central, Fine Gael)
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I want to get the money out. It is provided for in the Estimate.

Michael Kitt (Galway East, Fianna Fail)
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Please, we want to make some progress.