Eugene Murphy (Roscommon-Galway, Fianna Fail)
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1695. To ask the Minister for Agriculture, Food and the Marine if he will investigate the situation in which GLAS payments are not being processed or payments made due to the functionality required to process a payment that differs from the previous years payment is not in place on the information technology system that processes the payments for GLAS and his Department cannot give a timeframe as to when this situation will be resolved in order that payments that are now outstanding for some months can be made; and if he will make a statement on the matter. [28482/17]

Michael Creed (Cork North West, Fine Gael)
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In the context of the Rural Development Programme 2015 - 2020 the Department has delivered over twenty new schemes that were supported by IT capability in the last two years.  In the first two years of the current RDP programme my Department has already implemented substantially more RDP schemes than were implemented over the entire ten year lifetime of the previous RDP programme.  To date Ireland has drawn down funding at a rate that is 2.4 times higher than the EU average.  This rate of delivery and draw-down would not have been possible without the availability of high quality complex IT software systems to support the business units in operating these schemes.  Since 2014 my Department has adopted a policy of implementing fully digital end-to-end support for all but the smallest of schemes.

My Department has an excellent record in the delivery of high quality ICT systems.  In that respect my Department is ahead of the rest of our European partners and is also highly regarded across the Civil and Public Service.  We have been consistently among the first to make payments in the EU.

A number of issues arose in particular in relation to the GLAS system with additional functionality being required to deal with non standard cases.  Significant progress has been made in relation to payments in recent months with over 93% of GLAS I and II applicants now paid with documentation awaited from a further 1,200 applicants. Another 1,400 applications are under review.

All but a very small amount of outstanding work in relation to the GLAS scheme has been addressed and plans are in place to address this over the coming period.  Updates of the software required to process applications for the various schemes are applied on an ongoing basis.

Eugene Murphy (Roscommon-Galway, Fianna Fail)
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1696. To ask the Minister for Agriculture, Food and the Marine if he will investigate a GLAS payment to a person (details supplied) that is held up due to the information technology system not having the functionality required to process the payment that is overdue due to the fact there is a linear reduction; and if he will make a statement on the matter. [28483/17]

Michael Creed (Cork North West, Fine Gael)
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The person named approved into GLAS 1 with a contract commencement date of 1 October 2015 and has been paid in full in respect of the 2015 scheme year.

The person named has requested that the length of traditional stone wall included for maintenance in her application be reduced and this has resulted in the delay in issuing payment. My Department is actively working to resolve the issue with a view to further processing the application for payment at the earliest opportunity.