Éamon Ó Cuív (Galway West, Fianna Fail)
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645. To ask the Minister for Agriculture, Food and the Marine the total pay out to date under the GLAS and GLAS plus scheme for 2015; the number of farmers that have received their full payment of 2015; the number that have received 85% payment and the number that have received no payment; the number of farmers that joined GLAS in 2015; and if he will make a statement on the matter. [36902/16]

Michael Creed (Cork North West, Fine Gael)
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A total of €17,061,884 has issued to date under the GLAS Scheme in respect of the 2015 scheme year. There are 25,622 farmers currently approved in the first tranche of GLAS (GLAS 1). Some 22,162 of these participants are due a 2015 payment in respect of the three month period October to December 2015. The balance of farmers approved in GLAS 1, some 3,460 farmers, are not due a payment for 2015 as they either have a commencement date of 1 January 2016 or did not have  any GLAS payable actions for 2015 in their applications.

To date 20,333 GLAS 1 farmers have received their full 2015 part year payment while an additional 1,197 applications have received the first instalment  of their 2015 payment representing up to 85 % of total due for 2015. There are 632 applications which have yet to receive any payment for 2015 as they have not successfully completed the required regulatory checks due to errors identified during the Basic Payment Scheme cross checks, inspection cases that are currently being finalised,  mis-matches in Land Parcel Identifications System numbers due to changes in parcel boundaries and applications to change the areas originally approved into the scheme. Staff in  my Department are continuing to work on all outstanding applications on a case by case basis with the intention of processing payments which meet all required regulatory requirements as soon as possible.