Joe Carey (Clare, Fine Gael)
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242. To ask the Minister for Agriculture, Food and the Marine if all elements of the Burren LIFE programme are operational and accessible for funding allocation to farmers that are participating in the scheme; and if he will make a statement on the matter. [2339/17]

Michael Creed (Cork North West, Fine Gael)
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The Burren Programme is a locally-led agri-environment measure introduced by my Department under the Rural Development Programme 2014-2020. It follows on from two highly successful initiatives, namely the Burren LIFE Project 2005-2010 and the Burren Farming for Conservation Programme, 2010-2015. However, the new Burren Programme differs from its predecessors in two ways: it will be much bigger, with triple the previous participation levels, and it will offer five-year contracts, rather than operating from year-to-year as was previously the case.  

The transformation of the previous annual schemes into this much larger five-year Programme has required extensive negotiation with the EU Commission along with detailed design and development work.  As part of this process, my Department is developing a new online land-management system for the Burren.  Some components of this have yet to be completed, which means that one stream of the Burren Programme - the capital investment stream - has not yet been activated.  However, this will not in any way affect farmers' access to funding under the new Programme: payments are linked to the area of Annex 1 habitat held by each farmer and this provides for an individual 'envelope' of funds for each farmer that they can use anytime over the duration of their five year contract. 

I am informed that the new online land management system will  be available shortly for testing.  Once this has been completed, and all parties involved with the testing are satisfied, the system will be released. In the meantime, payments for the main intervention under the new Programme, which is the management of grazed habitats, is continuing as normal. Payments under this intervention have already commenced for the first tranche of farmers who entered the scheme in 2016.  Payment to those entering in 2017 commence towards the end of this year, as is normal with schemes of this nature.