Charlie McConalogue (Donegal, Fianna Fail)
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242. To ask the Minister for Agriculture, Food and the Marine if he will allocate the underspend on agri-environmental schemes under the rural development programme in 2015 to schemes under the programme in the remaining window of the Common Agricultural Policy; the status of unused funding after 2020; and if he will make a statement on the matter. [16569/16]

Michael Creed (Cork North West, Fine Gael)
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The agri-environment-climate measure, Measure 10, of the Rural Development Programme 2014 - 2020 includes the Green Low-Carbon Agri- Environment Scheme (GLAS), transitional funding for AEOS and REPS arising from commitments in the 2007 - 2013 RDP, the Beef Data Genomics Programme and The Burren Programme. All new schemes and programmes, with the exception of the Burren Programme which commenced in 2016, were rolled out in 2015 with very successful take- up. GLAS continues to recruit participants and now has 38,000 farmers in the Scheme, with the expectation that this will rise to the targeted 50,000 in 2017. The Burren Programme has 202 participants and we would expect that number to at least double by 2018 and there are 25,000 farmers signed up to BDGP. These numbers are in line with our projections.

The entire spend for Measure 10 in 2015 amounted to some €133m and in view of current and projected up-take there is every expectation that the full allocation for the Measure under the RDP will be used during the lifetime of the Programme.

As regards funding after 2020, Member States have until 31st December, 2023 to pay for RDP 2014 -2020 commitments and multi-annual contracts such as agri-environment schemes can go beyond 2020.