Minister for Agriculture, Food and the Marine Michael Creed has confirmed that his Department is putting arrangements in place to ensure the submission of Commonage Management Plans (CMP) in the next round of GLAS payments.

The Minister also said the process will ensure that payments for CMPs will now be issued at the same time as all other GLAS participants later this year.

Earlier delays

Pat Dunne, IFA Hill Committee chair, welcomed the announcement by Minister Creed and criticised the government for earlier delays involving the online IT system for submitting CMPs and assigning planners to farmers.

The IFA is now urging all farmers to contact their advisers to ensure their plans are submitted correctly, in order to guarantee payment.

The Irish Natura and Hill Farmers Association (INHFA) had also previously called on the Government to speed up the process, saying it would be totally unacceptable if commonage farmers were unable to receive “payment because of factors outside of their control”.

To date, almost 7,000 commonage farmers have applied for GLAS and this number is set to increase to over 10,000 when the next tranche of GLAS opens.

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