Tom Neville (Limerick County, Fine Gael)
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1171. To ask the Minister for Agriculture, Food and the Marine when the information technology functionality will be available to process the GLAS 1 and 2 applications that were refused in error by his department; and if he will make a statement on the matter. [35079/17]

Michael Creed (Cork North West, Fine Gael)
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All GLAS applications must pass all of the regulatory checks and validations associated with this EU co-funded scheme before they are approved into the scheme or a payment application can be finalised. To date over 98% of applicants have had their 2016 payment application processed on the online GLAS system of which over 96% have been paid and the remainder cannot be paid until they submit further information to the Department to allow their application be further processed.

In addition there are a small number of applications which when processed did not pass all of the required checks and as a result had an action or the whole application rejected from the Scheme.  In some of these cases the applicant has provided further information and following a review of the application the original decision made has been amended.

The online processing system for GLAS is being updated to facilitate the reinstatement of actions or applications following these successful reviews. This process is complex and my Department is currently developing the necessary additional IT functionality required to address these remaining issues as soon as possible. I should emphasise that these cases represent less than 1% of all GLAS applicants.