The president was speaking at a meeting of the IFA Executive Council in Dublin yesterday when he asked Minister for Agriculture Simon Coveney to intervene with his department to remove barriers which are denying farmers the opportunity to maximise their payments under the GLAS scheme.

He said that "farmers should be allowed to split LPIS parcels and not be limited to measures which they can put on that LPIS parcel."

As an example he said that many farmers will be interested in applying for the Low Input Grassland measure but then are not allowed apply for linear measures such as hedgerow measures and river margins on that same parcel.

Development Chairman Flor McCarthy said these issues must be addressed and that the IFA is now insisting the Minister tells his Department that farmers with their planners should be allowed split parcels before the 2015 BPS application.

Fair price

McCarthy also advised farmers to get the most competitive rate when negotiating planning fees for GLAS.

She said that recent discussions with Teagasc have resulted in an equivalent annual charge of €180/annum for each of the 5 year plan. Teagasc GLAS charges are on top of normal client fees and are paid at a rate of €435 to draw up the Plan and €465 at the end of 2016.

McCarthy also pointed out that the Department of Agriculture system must be "fit for purpose and must be capable of dealing with the huge number of applications expected". This point was in reference to a number of computer crashing difficulties planning offices had been having around the country.

Concluding, she said that all farmers who apply for GLAS must be accepted into the scheme and that the IFA is now seeking an urgent meeting with Minister Coveney on all these issues.