James Browne (Wexford, Fianna Fail)
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480. To ask the Minister for Agriculture, Food and the Marine when information technology issues related to GLAS and AEOS payments will be resolved; the reason for the problems forcing the exacerbation of delays; and if he will make a statement on the matter. [43010/17]

Michael Creed (Cork North West, Fine Gael)
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In the context of the Rural Development Programme 2014 - 2020 my Department has delivered over twenty new schemes that were supported by IT capability.  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. 

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.  We have been consistently among the first to make payments in the EU.

During the 2016 GLAS advance prepayment checking process some information technology issues arose.  Substantial work has been done to ensure that the system is well placed to process future payments. 

Currently the biggest delay in paying 2016 GLAS balance payments is caused by the delay by participants in submitting their outstanding Nutrient Management Plans (NMP). The NMP is a core scheme requirement and I urge all GLAS 1 and 2 participants and their Advisors to attend to this urgently so that outstanding balancing payments and future payments can issue and to ensure ongoing participation in the Scheme. As of October 6th just under 7,745 NMPs remained outstanding. Further payments cannot issue until an NMP is submitted to the dedicated online NMP system.

In the case of AEOS payments cases were worked through systematically and paid on a weekly basis as they were finalised. I am happy to announce that all of these cases have now been finalised and that there are no ongoing information technology problems in relation to AEOS.