The facility to submit the commonage management plans (CMPs) for those involved in GLAS was finally opened last week by the Department of Agriculture.

Delays in completing the online submission system have left advisers and farmers with two weeks to get all applications submitted before the 31 October deadline.

Just over 3,800 commonages have been declared for GLAS, farmed by a total of 9,000 shareholders.

Deadline

When questioned as to whether there would be an extension to the deadline to submit these CMPs, the Department responded: “Plans not submitted by the 31 October deadline will be subject to delayed payments. 2017 advance GLAS payments cannot issue until the plan is submitted.”

In a correspondence sent out to all advisers on the opening of the facility, the Department also stated that a very small number of commonages remain to be linked to the online system and are not yet available. However, it stated that this work will be completed shortly.

A tutorial on how to complete these commonage management plans is available on the Department’s website at www.agriculture.gov.ie.