Brian Ó Domhnaill (Fianna Fail)
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I welcome the Minister for Agriculture, Food and the Marine, Deputy Michael Creed, to the House and note my appreciation that he has attended to hear this Commencement debate. It is an issue on which he has probably received many representations and which he is dealing with as well as possible within the Department. It relates to two very important schemes, in particular for smaller farmers. These are GLAS and AEOS. Payments under the schemes have been delayed this year. I understand there are complications in terms of processing the applications but as of 2 February last week, the situation as set out in a reply the Minister delivered in the Dáil was that 24% of all GLAS payments remained outstanding. Of the 37,492 applications made, 8,967 had not resulted in payments. That comprised GLAS 1 and GLAS 2 applications. On the other environmental scheme, the agri-environment options scheme, 30% of applications for payment remained outstanding. According to the figures the Minister released last week, 2,625 payments remained outstanding out of a total application set of 8,640.

There is concern among farming organisations and in particular among small farmers themselves about this. I appreciate that a lot of applications have been processed and paid. It is understandable that there will be delays in processing payments every year. In that context, I understand that there are new computerised systems within the Department. However, can the Minister put a system in place whereby these applications can be processed more speedily? I met with farmers last weekend who have not received these payments and whose feed bills at this time of year are increasing. They are under financial pressure. Is there a way to release the payments sooner? Perhaps the Minister will update the House in relation to the current state of payments and state whether any additional staff have been sanctioned to allow the relevant section of the Department to process these payments more promptly.

Michael Creed (Cork North West, Fine Gael)
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I thank Senator Ó Domhnaill for raising this matter on the Commencement and welcome the opportunity to outline the current position regarding the 2016 payments under the green low carbon agri-environment scheme, GLAS, and the previous agri-environment scheme, the agri-environment options scheme, AEOS.

GLAS provides support to farmers under the rural development programme 2014 to 2020 to deliver environmental benefits and public goods which will enhance Ireland's agricultural sustainability credentials into the future. The scheme plays a critical role in enhancing Ireland's efforts to deliver sustainable agricultural production. It provides support to Irish farmers aimed at the enhancement of biodiversity, water quality and the mitigation of the future impacts of climate change while allowing Irish farmers to improve their agricultural productivity and practices in a sustainable manner. It is critical that we protect the Irish countryside for the benefit of all and GLAS provides support to Irish producers to do this while enhancing their ability to deliver sustainable food production. That food production is making a critical contribution to growth in the Irish economy.

GLAS involves a maximum annual payment of €5,000 under the general scheme with provision for payment up to €7,000, known as GLAS+, where the farmer is required to give exceptional environmental commitments in a limited number of cases. Applications under the first two tranches of the GLAS scheme resulted in almost 38,000 farmers being approved into the scheme in its first year of implementation. This represents an unprecedented level of participation in the first year of an agri-environment scheme in Ireland. I recently indicated that all qualifying applicants under the third tranche of GLAS will be accepted into the scheme. With just under 14,000 applicants for GLAS 3, this will bring overall participation levels above the targeted participation level of 50,000 farmers. As all participants in the second tranche of the previous agri-environment scheme, AEOS Il, completed their five-year contracts at the end of December 2016, a full check of all payments made must be carried out before their final payment issues. This final check is an EU requirement and has been completed in many cases.

I note that 2016 payments in the amount of over €19 million have been paid to over 6,000 participants remaining in this scheme. Payments are issuing in outstanding cases as soon as the final check has been completed and officials in my Department are working to ensure that payment issues in all cases issue as soon as possible. The 2016 payments represent the first full year of payment under GLAS.At the end of December 2016, there were approximately 37,500 active participants in the GLAS scheme, of which 27,400 received 85% of their 2016 payment in December. These payments were valued at over €97 million. As the accredited paying agency, the Department has a duty to ensure that, in making payments, everything in an application that can be checked is checked as required under the regulations. As a result, payments can only issue where all the required validation checks have been successfully passed. As issues with outstanding cases are resolved, they are paid in weekly payment runs. Further payments, valued at €5.3 million, issued to just under 1,500 participants over the past couple of weeks and payments to a further 750 farmers are expected to issue before the end of this week.

To facilitate divergent farming practices, GLAS has a range of over 30 actions available for selection by applicants for GLAS. Under EU regulations, compliance with each action must be verified, so there are validations associated with each of these actions. As a result, there are a number of different reasons that payment may not have issued. Many of these issues, given their complexity, require review on a case-by-case basis and this work is ongoing at the moment. To suggest that these cases could be processed manually is unrealistic as the full suite of checks would remain to be carried out and recorded on each individual application which would, most likely, lead to audit risks and further delays. As issues are resolved, payments will continue to issue on an ongoing basis. I am very keenly aware of the need to process these payments without delay and I recognise that these payments are overdue. I am ensuring that all resources required, both on the lT and administrative side, are directed towards resolving the outstanding queries on these cases.

In relation to the online application system for GLAS, it is clear from the governing regulations that not only is it desirable that member states move to electronic processing of area-based aid and support applications, but it is, in fact, a mandatory regulatory requirement from the 2018 claim year onward. In this context, my Department launched a tremendously ambitious development programme to move to an online application and payment processing system for GLAS. Compared to Northern Ireland, England, Scotland and Wales, where farmer interest in agri-environment schemes is also very strong, this is an extraordinary achievement as these areas remain in the early stages of approving applications. In the context of the recently launched consultation process on the future of CAP, it is in Ireland's interests that we have a fully developed, robust electronic processing and payment system that will give the necessary assurances that disbursement of EU funds is managed to the highest standards. Not only will this act as a protection against disallowances in this programming period, but it will also serve to strengthen our position in negotiating funding for a future agri-environment scheme in the next programming period.

Brian Ó Domhnaill (Fianna Fail)
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I appreciate the fact that the Department is doing everything possible to get these payments issued and I note that 750 payments will be issued this week, in addition to what has been issued in the past couple of weeks. With an average of 750 per week, it would take ten weeks to clear the backlog of payments. I appreciate that it is a new system but the Department needs to set a realistic timeframe and start to put the processes in place. We are looking for efficiencies within the Department budget but also effectiveness in delivering payments to farmers. I know the Minister is on the side of farmers and I thank him for his response.

Michael Creed (Cork North West, Fine Gael)
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I thank the Senator for raising the matter. I am acutely conscious of the hardship it is causing in terms of cashflow management for individual farmers. According to the charter, agreed between farmers and my Department, we are behind the curve in getting the payments out and they are overdue. I assure all Senators and the farming community that every effort is being made in the Department to make the payments as quickly as possible. Every single application from the cohort that remain to be paid has to be eyeballed to identify and resolve the issues in respect of the individual application. I am not pointing a finger outside the Department as it has to be resolved within the Department so that, when we press the pay button next year for all 38,000 applicants, it will all issue smoothly. We are in a similar situation to the one we were in at this time last year but every effort is being made in terms of IT resources, personnel and overtime availability. It is a logistical issue that needs time to resolve but, extrapolating from what we have paid in recent weeks, I would be very disappointed if it took the length of the time the Senator has suggested.