GLAS was the only farm support scheme under the Rural Development Programme (RDP) catching up on previous years' underspends in 2018, according to the latest figures published by Minister for Agriculture Michael Creed.

GLAS payments totalling €232m were made to 49,919 farmers last year, €6m higher than the annual allocation for the scheme. This follows underspends in the previous two years.

The other main RDP schemes continued to see payments fall short of their budget allocation in 2018:

  • TAMS II grants totalling €66.716m were paid to 17,101 farmers, €3.227m under budget – despite more than doubling compared with 2017.
  • €46.2m went to farmers under BDGP out of an allocation of €49.5m. There are now 24,544 participants in the scheme after 7,255 farmers pulled out over the past four years.
  • Payments worth €15.4m were made to 18,992 farmers and their advisors under for the Knowledge Transfer scheme, leaving €7.6m unspent – though Minister Creed said some payments for year two were pushed into this year. Over 400 farmers withdrew from the scheme last year.
  • Some €18.42m went to sheep farmers under the first year of the Sheep Welfare Scheme out of an allocation of €20m. The allocation was reduced to €18m for year two, out of which €15.14m has been paid with balancing payments due in the next quarter. A total of 1,238 farmers have withdrawn from the scheme since it started in 2017.
  • The Hen Harrier Programme spent just over €2m out of its allocation of €3.5m. There are now 6,294 farmers enrolled in the scheme for its first full year of operation in 2019.

    • Minister Creed supplied the figures in reply to a parliamentary question from Fianna Fáil agriculture spokesperson Charlie McConalogue.

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