The Department of Agriculture has given the IFA assurances that there will be a weekly run of GLAS payments following a protest at department headquarters in Dublin on Tuesday.

IFA president Joe Healy has called on Minister for Agriculture Michael Creed to pursue the issue with the European Commission to allow all farmers who are waiting on GLAS payments to be paid now with outstanding issues then sorted at a later date.

“It is absolutely unacceptable that farmers who joined the GLAS scheme almost two years ago, and who were promised payments last October, are still waiting with no definite answers as to when they can expect to get paid,” Healy said at Tuesday’s protest in Dublin.

The IFA is also pressing for payments to be made to farmers on qualifying measures in cases where particular measures in a GLAS plan are cleared but there are issues with other measures in the plan.

The Department agreed to communicate with farmers outlining where issues have arisen in plans during the meeting with IFA representatives.

The demonstration in Dublin is the third protest to take place across the country in 24 hours over delayed GLAS payments. Over 9,000 farmers have yet to be paid for measures taken under the agri-environment scheme.

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