Advance GLAS payments first began to issue to farmers almost three months ago, but, according to figures released by the Department of Agriculture, 5,926 farmers are yet to receive their 85% advance GLAS payments in respect of the 2017 scheme year.

The figures were released in response to a parliamentary question from Fianna Fáil spokesperson for agriculture Charlie McConalogue.

To date, €158.7m has issued in advance payments to farmers, with €2.2m of this having issued in the past week. In total, €203m has been allocated to issue to farmers through GLAS for 2018.

With an average payment of €4,155 through GLAS, advance payments are worth approximately €3,532 to farmers, which represents a large portion of farm income.

According to these figures, approximately €21m of advance payments is yet to issue to farmers.

A county-by-county breakdown of the number of farmers still waiting on advance payments can be seen in Figure 1.

Mayo has the largest number of farmers awaiting payments with 892 or 19% of GLAS farmers in the county still awaiting payments. Galway is next with 753 farmers awaiting payment, while 461 Kerry farmers are awaiting payment. Overall, 12% of the 49,721 farmers in the scheme have yet to receive payment.

There are several reasons why payments have yet to issue to farmers. There are 375 nutrient management plans and 299 commonage management plans that are currently outstanding, and payment cannot issue until these are submitted. Additionally, there are some applicants where amendments are required to BPS maps before they will be eligible for payment.