One reason for delayed GLAS payments on farms this year is due to the historic use of land where GLAS actions are now situated. In the past, farmers participating in the Rural Environmental Protection Scheme (REPS) fenced off an area of their farm to create a habitat for biodiversity which was known as REPS 4A habitat (up to 0.8ha).

When the REPS contracts expired, some returned the area to forage on the basic payment system and received payments on this land since, known as non-designated forage. However, other farmers did not return the area to the basic payment system and left it under scrub ineligible for payments, known as non-designated habitat.

Other farmers got the area designated as a landscape feature on the basic payment system and, although it may be in scrub, are receiving Basic Payment Scheme (BPS) payments for the land area, which is known as designated habitat. It is now emerging that a range of GLAS actions (mainly low input permanent pasture paid at €315/ha) were located on REPS 4A habitats and the GLAS online system allowed this to happen, whether the REPS 4A habitats were non-designated or designated.

Designated habitats

Where REPS 4A habitats were designated as landscape features (designated habitats) on BPS in any year since the end of REPS, these areas were ineligible for GLAS actions.

Because farmers undertook to retain them as they were in REPS, these (scrub) areas were eligible for entitlements. Because the GLAS online planning system allowed them, they were sometimes (incorrectly) used as locations for GLAS actions. The Department has indicated appeals on these are not likely to be successful. If the habitat was damaged in the process of using it for GLAS it may have BPS implications.

Non-designated

Where REPS 4A habitats were either claimed as forage (and got entitlements on them) or claimed as a habitat or former REPS 4A habitats, these may have not been ploughed or reseeded and should be eligible for most GLAS actions like any other land. These need to be appealed on an individual basis to the Department.