Brendan Smith (Cavan-Monaghan, Fianna Fail)
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62. To ask the Minister for Agriculture, Food and the Marine when GLAS will open for applications; the likely applicants that will be approved for participations in the scheme; the total expenditure for this scheme in 2015; the projected number of participants; and if he will make a statement on the matter. [3993/15]

Simon Coveney (Cork South Central, Fine Gael)
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GLAS (the Green Low-carbon Agri-environment Scheme) is part of a suite of proposed measures under Ireland’s Rural Development Programme (RDP) which was submitted to the European Commission in July. The Commission services notified us of their detailed observations on the draft Programme at the end of October last year, to which my Department provided immediate and detailed replies. Since then, bilateral discussions have been ongoing with the Commission, with the objective of securing approval for the Irish Programme at the earliest possible date. Once approval is granted, my Depar tment will move to open the Scheme as soon as possible.

I anticipate that between 25,000 and 30,000 farmers will be approved for entry to GLAS this year and, as the regulations require that all applications be administratively checked before any application is approved, it will take some time to process applications. This work will be prioritised with a view to having it completed as quickly as possible. As with the introduction of previous agri-environmental schemes, payment in the first year of application (2015) will be on a part-year basis, followed by annual payments for a further five full calendar years. I have included a sum of €20m in my Department’s Estimates for 2015 to cover expenditure on GLAS this year.