Michael Lowry (Tipperary, Independent)
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351. To ask the Minister for Agriculture, Food and the Marine the number of applicants for REPS by county in tabular form; and if he will make a statement on the matter. [35059/21]

Charlie McConalogue (Donegal, Fianna Fail)
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The attached table shows the number of applicants by county across all REPS schemes (ie; REPS 1, 2 3, and 4).

Michael Lowry (Tipperary, Independent)
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353. To ask the Minister for Agriculture, Food and the Marine if there was a penalty or claw back of moneys, grant or scheme payments to farmers who were in REPS that decided to convert a part of their farm to forestry during the duration of their REPS plan; and if he will make a statement on the matter. [35061/21]

Charlie McConalogue (Donegal, Fianna Fail)
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The Terms and Conditions of the REPS 4 scheme stated that where the eligible area for the Scheme was decreased, the annual payment would be adjusted at the commencement of the next full year. The re-imbursement of aid already paid was not required in respect of lands afforested under Council Regulation (EC) No. 1698/2005. However, where land was afforested during a REPS recording year, a proportionate reimbursement would apply for the part of the REPS year that had not been completed.

The EU regulatory provisions for the subsequent agri-environment, climate measure (GLAS) which is an action rather than area-based scheme did not provide for such reimbursement options. They also required the clawback of any monies paid under the scheme on land which was subsequently afforested at some later point in the scheme.

Michael Lowry (Tipperary, Independent)
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354. To ask the Minister for Agriculture, Food and the Marine the number farmers in GLAS that did not take the GLAS extension; and if he will make a statement on the matter. [35062/21]

Charlie McConalogue (Donegal, Fianna Fail)
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Contracts entered into under the 1st and 2nd tranches of the Green Low-Carbon Agri-environment Scheme (GLAS 1 and 2) were due to be completed on 31st December 2020. As the negotiations on the new Common Agricultural Policy post-2020 were ongoing, it was decided, with the approval of the EU Commission, to offer an extension to such contracts to 31st December 2021.

Offers to extend were accordingly issued to relevant participants in December 2020 (with a small number subsequently issued in early 2021 as transfers of contracts were finalised). I am pleased to note that the current position is that the bulk of the participants in GLAS 1 and 2 have extended their contracts, as evidenced by their submission of their claims, as part of the Basic Payment Scheme (BPS) system, for payments in respect of GLAS 1 and 2 contracts for 2021 with a total of 2,355 such participants not availing of extension. This represents just over 6.5% of the overall number in GLAS 1 and 2.