Glas Commonage Farmers Shortchanged on Part Payment

IFA Rural Development Chairman Flor McCarthy has called on the Minister for Agriculture Simon Coveney to instruct his Department to allow for a higher GLAS payment to be made in the part payment to commonage farmers.

Flor McCarthy said that the Department is paying the full three-month payment to any commonage farmers on the first 17ha only. As a result, IFA estimate that in some cases farmers are being left short and will have to wait until next May before they get the full €1,200 due.

The IFA Rural Development Chairman said that this is unfair and leaves these low-income farmers with a serious cash flow difficulty.

In relation to the payout to all first phase GLAS farmers, IFA has called for the full three-month payments of around €20m to be paid out immediately.

With regard to the second phase of GLAS, Flor McCarthy has welcomed the application of 14,000 farmers into the scheme. “It is now up to Minister Coveney to accept all of the applicants into the scheme and to inform them of their acceptance by the end of January. On the third phase of the scheme, the Minister must now open up GLAS for up to 10,000 farmers. This is important to achieve the target of 50,000 farmers in scheme by 2016”.