GLAS planners have said that improvements made by the Department of Agriculture to the online application system “have made a difference”.

Speaking to the Irish Farmers Journal, president of the Agricultural Consultants Association (ACA) Tom Dawson said the improvements are welcome but that all problems are not solved.

“We definitely are in a better place than we were last week but it’s still not perfect,” Dawson said.

Over the course of the weekend, the Department carried out upgrades to the online application system after major concerns were raised by the ACA.

“We had discussions with the Department about what we felt needed to be addressed with the (online application) system. They sent out IT staff to some of our members’ offices to physically see what issues we were having. Things have improved slightly,” Dawson added.

Dawson also confirmed that there will be no further changes as the system to send completed GLAS plans to the Department will open this week.

“After tomorrow (Tuesday) evening there won’t be any more fixes… the system for us (planners) to upload plans to the Department will be active and live this week. There’s then a short timeframe to get the plans in so there won’t be any more changes to the system,” Dawson concluded.

According to the Department of Agriculture's website, there are now 696 approved GLAS planners with some 272 of those having completed the training to be an approved commonage planner.