Éamon Ó Cuív (Galway West, Fianna Fail)
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639. To ask the Minister for Agriculture, Food and the Marine the number of commonage framework plans that have been prepared under the GLAS scheme to date broken down by county; the number that remain to be prepared; if payments have been and will be paid out under GLAS for commonages in view of the fact that these plans have not been prepared in some instances; the amount of money held back as a result; and if he will make a statement on the matter. [36895/16]

Michael Creed (Cork North West, Fine Gael)
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As result of the applications approved into the first two tranches of GLAS (GLAS 1 and GLAS 2) Commonage Advisors have been assigned to prepare Commonage Management Plans (CMPs) for over 2,700 commonages. No CMPs have been submitted to date as the deadline for completed plans to be submitted is 1 September 2017 which will facilitate the inclusion of commonage farmers approved into the third tranche of GLAS. This work is ongoing and final CMPs have therefore not been submitted yet.

In respect of 2016 payments for GLAS 1 and GLAS 2 applications with commonages, my Department has put in place a process to provide for the submission of interim Commonage Management Plans. The interim process requires the assigned GLAS commonage advisor to complete a 2016 interim CMP for each of the commonages assigned to them and requires signatures of each GLAS approved participant who is a shareholder on each of these commonages. The vast majority of interim CMP forms have been returned by advisors and in respect of these cases processing of 2016 payment will take place at the same time as all other applications. 

The interim CMP clearly stated that failure by the farmer to sign the interim CMP would result in no GLAS payment issuing so it is only where a farmer has not signed up to an interim CMP that payment could not issue.

There are a number of commonages for which the assignment of an advisor is under review and my Department is currently putting in place a procedure which will facilitate the processing of 2016 GLAS payment for shareholders on these commonages to take place at the same time as all other GLAS 1 and GLAS 2 participants.