Charlie McConalogue (Donegal, Fianna Fail)
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6. To ask the Minister for Agriculture, Food and the Marine the reason his Department failed to meet its commitment to make GLAS and AEOS payments in December 2016; the total number of GLAS 1 and GLAS 2 farmers that have received 85% of their total 2016 payment; the number of farmers that have passed all payment approval checks and are awaiting their 2016 payment; the total number of GLAS and AEOS recipients that have yet to receive payment; and if he will make a statement on the matter. [4902/17]

Charlie McConalogue (Donegal, Fianna Fail)
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Will the Minister explain why his Department failed to meet its commitment to make GLAS and AEOS payments on time in December 2016 and outline the number of GLAS 1, GLAS 2 and AEOS applicants who have received 85% of their payments to date and when the remaining applicants can expect payment?

Michael Creed (Cork North West, Fine Gael)
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The green low-carbon agri-environment scheme, GLAS, and the previous agri-environment scheme, the agri-environment options scheme, AEOS, provide valuable support to farmers to deliver environmental benefits and public goods which will enhance Ireland's agricultural sustainability credentials into the future. They provide support to Irish farmers aimed at enhancement of biodiversity, water quality and mitigation of future impacts of climate change while allowing Irish farmers to improve their agricultural practices in a sustainable manner. To date, support valued at over €120 million has been provided to Irish farmers in respect of 2016 payments under these schemes.

The number of farmers active in GLAS is almost 37,500, of which 25,825 are in GLAS 1 and 11,667 are in GLAS 2. Almost 20,000 farmers in GLAS 1 and almost 8,700 farmers in GLAS 2 have successfully completed the GLAS prepayment checks in respect of the 2016 scheme year and a first payment instalment of 85% has issued in these cases. The balancing payment due to farmers who have received 85% of their 2016 payment will issue later in the year when the last of the required on-the-spot inspections have been initiated. The most recent payments issued on 30 January 2017, with €4.2 million issuing to just under 1,200 participants.

The year, 2016, was an exceptionally busy one as an additional 11,500 farmers were processed to approval in GLAS 2 and a further 14,000 new applications were submitted under tranche 3 and are currently being processed to approval stage with a view to increasing the overall numbers in the scheme to in excess of 50,000 scheme participants from 1 January 2017. It is acknowledged that payment targets have not been fully met, with under 3,000 GLAS 1 and under 6,000 GLAS 2 payments remaining to be fully processed. This is due, in the main, to unanticipated outcomes of the checks required to be carried out on each individual application.

Outstanding payments under both GLAS 1 and GLAS 2 are delayed due to a variety of issues, including declaration of incompatible parcel usage on the basic payment scheme, BPS, application for a chosen GLAS action; changes in parcel boundaries on which a GLAS action is chosen, including splitting or merging of parcels; an applicant no longer claiming a parcel on their 2016 BPS; incomplete documentation such as incorrect information on low-emission slurry declaration; incomplete interim commonage management plans; and incompatible data and parcel history on Department databases.

Additional information not given on the floor of the House

Just over 8,615 farmers in the agri-environment options scheme are due a payment in respect of 2016. Payment has issued to 6,020 AEOS farmers, with almost 2,600 remaining to be paid. As in the case of GLAS, the AEOS 2016 payments are issued in two parts, with an advance payment of 85% and the remaining 15% issuing thereafter. The most recent payments issued on 31 January 2017, when over €850,000 issued to just under 350 participants. Payments will continue to be made on a regular basis as files are cleared.

Outstanding payments under AEOS 2 are largely delayed due to rechecks which must be completed on payments made for all scheme years before the final contract payment can be processed.  Outstanding payments under AEOS 3 are delayed by stocking density checks. Farmers had until 31 December 2015 to meet their stocking density on commonages and a density check must be completed before payment can issue.

I also point out that a number of payments under both schemes are held up due to incomplete documentation and all participants are reminded to submit any outstanding documentation as soon as possible to facilitate payment. Payments under both schemes will continue on an ongoing basis as issues are resolved and cases are cleared for payment.

Charlie McConalogue (Donegal, Fianna Fail)
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It is unacceptable that it is now February 2017 and some 9,000 of the farmers who were promised by the Minister and his Department under the farmers charter that they would receive 85% of their GLAS payments in October last year have still not received their first payment. I asked the Minister for specifics on why this has happened. According to the Minister's reply, the Department was unable to process approximately 9,000 of the 37,000 applications because there were errors or issues with them. Farmers only learn about such errors or issues after they have failed to receive their payments. I do not accept that there could be 9,000 applications in respect of which administrative errors arose such that the Department has been unable to process them thus far.

Perhaps the Minister will elaborate on what IT issues fed into the delay in terms of processing payments. What are the IT problems and why were they not identified and dealt with sooner by the Minister? Many of the farmers concerned are due an average payment of €4,500, which they had banked on having before Christmas but they still have not received their payments. This matter needs to be sorted out immediately. I would also welcome a full explanation today from the Minister in terms of his oversight of this mess.

Michael Creed (Cork North West, Fine Gael)
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I assure the Deputy that my departmental officials, administrative and IT, are working flat out to resolve this issue. I am not pointing the finger at anybody. When my Department hit the "pay" button in respect of GLAS, some applications did not get through the system. In terms of what needs to happen now, all of the outstanding applications will have to be scrutinised. The problems presenting relate to compatibility between GLAS actions and plots submitted under basic payment scheme applications and so on. Very often a bespoke IT solution is required to address these issues. It is, unfortunately, a slow process but the issues are being worked through as quickly as possible. Neither I nor my Department has a vested interest in delaying payments to farmers. We are working flat out to resolve this issue.

I wish I were in a position to give a definitive timeline for when it can be resolved. I assure the Deputy it is not an issue of resources within the Department, nor is it an issue of pointing fingers. The issues that arose when the payments did not proceed are such that we have to eyeball every application that did not go through. We have to identify the reason each payment did not go through and then find IT solutions to enable payments to go through.

Charlie McConalogue (Donegal, Fianna Fail)
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I would have believed that the whole idea of having an IT system was to have one that is fit for purpose such that it does not have to be revisited every time one comes up against a problem. One should not need to come up with bespoke amendments to the IT system to try to deal with the job that must be done by it. As I stated, there are 9,000 farmers in GLAS still awaiting payment, and there are 4,000 farmers in the AEOS whom I understand have not been paid yet. These are farmers whom the Department promised would be paid back in October. To say this is not a resources issue just does not stand up. To say the position on the IT system is acceptable does not stand up either. If the Department had been seeking to pay the moneys back in October and the Minister had been working to ensure this, these issues would have been spotted then. It was only after the payment was not made that the Minister sought to inform farmers there was a issue and to try to rectify it.

Farmers are waiting for 85% of their payments. Is it possible that the Minister could seek sanction from the European Union to pay the farmers the 85%, for which they are so desperately waiting, and then work through the issues that exist? The Minister is telling me the applications have to be eyeballed one by one and that the resources are all in place to do so. Unfortunately, this will go on for weeks or months unless the Minister gets a handle on it and finds a mechanism to pay the farmers, many of whom are in desperate financial circumstances because they were expecting to be paid months ago.

Michael Creed (Cork North West, Fine Gael)
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For the record of the House, the number of applicants awaiting AEOS payments is not 4,000; it is 2,600.

I fully accept the concern of anybody awaiting payment. In many respects, when one is explaining one is losing. I must be fair to the staff in the Department. We must be fair to everybody, including staff and farmers. Farmers are owed their money. We are contractually bound to pay them and will do so. We are working through a difficult set of circumstances, however, and it is not a resource issue. It is neither an administrative resource issue nor an IT resource issue. We simply have to eyeball each of the individual applications that are presented as a challenge to get them through our system. We are doing that. Staff are working flat out on it. It is a logistical issue, not a resource issue. I appreciate that the Deputy wants to spin a narrative of under-expenditure and deliberate under-expenditure. With regard to the difficulty that farmers are in at present, I acknowledge that if one is waiting for several thousand euro it presents a difficulty. I assure the Deputy that we are doing everything we can to resolve this matter.

Seán Ó Fearghaíl (Kildare South, Ceann Comhairle)
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Before proceeding to the next question, let me point out that if every question runs over time, Members further down the list will not get an opportunity to pose their questions. Each Member present is as well able to read a clock as I am and, therefore, I appeal to them to have regard to the allocated time.