Charlie McConalogue (Donegal, Fianna Fail)
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514. To ask the Minister for Agriculture, Food and the Marine the steps his Department is taking to facilitate all commonage farmers who wish to submit an application to GLAS by the extended deadline considering planners have encountered difficulties logging into the online system or completing commonage management plans as mandatory under the scheme; if he will ensure that no delay to payments will occur considering the issues being encountered are beyond the control of commonage farmers; and if he will make a statement on the matter. [28297/16]

Michael Creed (Cork North West, Fine Gael)
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My Department is putting arrangements in place to provide for the submission of interim GLAS Commonage Management Plans (CMPs) by the end of October 2016.  This interim solution will provide for the inclusion of all GLAS participants in final CMPs, in particular, allowing new GLAS Tranche 3 applicants with commonage lands to be included on CMPs.

The Department’s online Commonage Management Plan system will be rolled out in the near future to allow planners to record the work they have already completed on CMPs. The submission of final CMPs on the online system, which will include all GLAS participants, will be required by June 2017 and this approach will ensure that the final CMPs will be comprehensive providing a valuable framework to maximise the enhancement of the environmental benefits of these lands.

The submission of complete interim CMPs will ensure that 2016 payments can issue to all eligible GLAS participants, including those with Commonage actions, at the same time later this year.