Pearse Doherty (Donegal, Sinn Fein)
Link to this: Individually | In context | Oireachtas source

170. To ask the Minister for Agriculture, Food and the Marine when a person (details supplied) in County Donegal will receive a decision from the agriculture appeals office regarding an application under the green low-carbon agri-environment scheme; and if he will make a statement on the matter. [7463/16]

Simon Coveney (Cork South Central, Fine Gael)
Link to this: Individually | In context | Oireachtas source

An application for Tranche 2 of the GLAS Scheme was received in this case on the dedicated GLAS online system on the 8 December 2015.

The unprecedented level of applications to the Scheme has meant that for GLAS 2, priority is being given to what are called Tier 1 and Tier 2 candidates, i.e. those who either manage key environmental assets like endangered birds, protected habitats or high-quality water courses, or who have committed to undertake particularly valuable environmental actions like growing feed-crops for wild birds, adopting low-impact tillage techniques or using low-emission slurry spreading methods. 

The application for the person named was ranked as a Tier 3 application and it was therefore not selected into the scheme. A letter issued to the person named notifying him of this decision and giving him the option of appeal to GLAS section. An appeal was received from the person named and following review the original decision was upheld. The applicant has been informed of his right to appeal this further to the Agriculture Appeals Office (AAO) but to date there is no record of an appeal having been made.

A third tranche of GLAS (GLAS 3) will open later this year and the person named and any applicant who was unsuccessful in the second tranche will have the opportunity now to re-examine their proposed farm-plan, in consultation with their adviser, and see how it might be improved to increase their chance of selection under GLAS 3 and to submit a new application for GLAS 3 when the scheme is opened.