Minister Simon Coveney has yet to announce when GLAS will open to applications and when will be the start date in 2015 for contracts. The farm organisations want contracts start on 1 January to maximise 2015 payments.

To get Tier 1 status, 50% of the active shareholders on a commonage, or shareholders holding over 50% of the land, must sign a collective agreement. With some large commonages having over 100 active shareholders, many farmers maintain this is not practical. Planners have many concerns over this issue, too.

The question of which farmers will qualify for the GLAS+ payment of up to €2,000 per anum is sensitive. Many commonage and hill farmers will see a cut in their farm payments with the ending of REPS. On the other hand, many suckler farms and small dairy farms will suffer a cut in Single Farm Payment.

Flexibility

The Minister has announced the GLAS measures and their basic payment rates (see table). However, he has not yet revealed the maximum uptake that will be allowed for individual measures.

Applicants will find one or other measure more attractive than others and will want to use this measure(s) to build up their annual payment.

The details of this will determine how attractive the scheme is for many farmers.