John Brassil (Kerry, Fianna Fail)
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699. To ask the Minister for Agriculture, Food and the Marine the meaning implied when his Department states the term "IT functionality"; the details of the IT functionality failures that are causing agricultural payments to be so severely delayed; the action being taken to rectify these IT functionality problems; the length of time he expects it will take before persons can expect overdue payments; and if he will make a statement on the matter. [10239/17]

Michael Creed (Cork North West, Fine Gael)
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My Department has a very good reputation in the delivery of schemes.  ICT systems to support all Pillar 1 and over 20 Pillar 2 schemes have already been delivered in the first two years of the new CAP Programme. This equates to more than one new scheme every month and no other country in the EU has come close to this level of delivery.  Ireland has so far drawn down some 32% of its allocated funding for the period of the programme.  In contrast the average EU drawdown to-date stands at 14%.  Ireland has delivered at nearly 2½ times the European average.  Also as an example, Northern Ireland has just this month launched its first agri-environmental scheme under the CAP 2015-2020 Programme.  Ireland has already successfully launched three GLAS schemes and two Organic Farm schemes.  This rate of delivery could only have been made possible by the availability of very dedicated delivery teams and high quality ICT systems which have provided excellent support in the operation of the schemes.

GLAS payments underway since December 2016 represent the first full year payment schedule under the GLAS scheme.  More than 28,000 participants in the scheme received 85% of their payment totalling almost €100 million before the end of last year. To date 30,700 participants have been paid which represents 83% of total scheme participants.  Payments runs will continue on a weekly basis.

The majority of the outstanding applications involve cases where the computer system has discovered issues which by their nature require manual intervention to resolve. These applications require further investigation and are being gone through on an individual basis. These cases, many of which are quite complex to resolve or require further feedback from the farmer, can take a considerable effort to resolve. They are being addressed with the greatest urgency possible to ensure that the farmer gets paid as soon as possible.

I can assure the Deputy that everything is being done to ensure the earliest possible resolution of these cases.