Written answers

Wednesday, 29 April 2015

Department of Agriculture, Food and the Marine

GLAS Data

Photo of Éamon Ó CuívÉamon Ó Cuív (Galway West, Fianna Fail)
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72. To ask the Minister for Agriculture, Food and the Marine the total allocation under the rural development programme for the GLAS scheme excluding transitional payments for the rural environment protection scheme and the agri-environment options scheme; the number of farmers to date that have chosen actions under GLAS+; the total to date that have chosen actions under GLAS, exclusive of applicants who have chosen actions under GLAS and GLAS+; and if he will make a statement on the matter. [16947/15]

Photo of Simon CoveneySimon Coveney (Cork South Central, Fine Gael)
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The Rural Development Programme (RDP), 2014-2020 will be a key support in enhancing the competitiveness of the agri-food sector, achieving more sustainable management of natural resources and ensuring a more balanced development of rural areas.  EU Regulation No 1305/2013 of the European Parliament and of the Council on support for Rural Development by the European Agricultural Fund for Rural Development (EAFRD) sets out the breakdown of EU support for rural development for each Member State for the years 2014 – 2020.  Ireland’s total EAFRD allocation for rural development is some €2.19 billion (or some €313 million per annum), as agreed at the EU Multi-annual Financial Framework (MFF) negotiations in 2013.  EU funding amounts are combined with national co-funding to provide for each Member State’s RDP. In Ireland’s case, National Exchequer funding brings the total to be spent on RDP schemes in the 2014-2020 period to some €4 billion.

The total allocation for Agri-Environment and Climate Measures under Measure 10 of the new RDP is made up of a number of elements.  Within this, the allocation for GLAS (incorporating GLAS training and the linked Traditional Farm Building Scheme) is some €1.08bn of EU and national funding.  In addition to this figure, there is a total allocation of some €390 million in respect of transitional funding for previous Agri-environment schemes. In this regard, it is anticipated that many AEOS farmers will join GLAS and where this happens it would be expected that the transitional figure will decrease with a corresponding increase in the GLAS figure.  In addition, the overlap of funding between programming periods is a standard feature of RDP design, and it would be expected that funding from the next RDP period would be allocated to GLAS in much the same way as REPS and AEOS are funded in the new RDP.  This will also be reflected in adjustment of the total spend on GLAS over the lifetime of the scheme.

To date over 21,000 applications have been registered on the GLAS online system, of which more than 13,000 have already selected actions. Both figures are increasing daily. It is important to note that applicants do not ‘select’ actions to qualify for GLAS Plus - the increased payments available under this measure are automatically applied where the annual cost for a farmer of addressing a combination of Tier 1 Priority Environmental Assets (PEAs) exceeds €5,000 per annum. These farmers move into the GLAS Plus category, where the ceiling for annual payment is €7,000. Farmers managing bird PEAs can qualify for GLAS Plus on the strength of their bird PEA alone, without the need for any other PEA, provided of course that they manage enough area of habitat to draw the additional payment.

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