Pearse Doherty (Donegal South West, Sinn Fein)
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296. To ask the Minister for Agriculture, Food and the Marine his plans to extend existing deadlines for applications for any of the various farm schemes, in order to alleviate the workload of agricultural advisers and planners, whose workload has been added to as a result of the new green low-carbon agri-environmental scheme; and if he will make a statement on the matter. [9317/15]

Simon Coveney (Cork South Central, Fine Gael)
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My Department has designed and developed a bespoke GLAS online application system which will assist advisors in the preparation of applications. This system presents the advisors with detailed information of the environmental attributes on each farm at individual LPIS parcel level. I am pleased that, following long and complex negotiations with the European Commission, I was in a position to open the new online system on Monday 23 February. This allows advisors commence preparing GLAS applications for farmers with immediate effect and the feedback so far from advisors is that the system is straightforward and simple to use.

Furthermore, in order to complement the GLAS online system, I have put in place resources to assist advisors with any queries they might have, and this is proving very effective, with rapid responses being given to both email and telephone enquiries.

I am also aware that a number of companies have engaged additional employees in response to increased service demand and this is a welcome development.

The EU regulatory requirement for the submission of payment applications by 15 May dictates the deadlines for Scheme applications and in view of this I have no flexibility to extend any application deadlines. However, I am conscious that one of the main difficulties facing GLAS advisers is the preparation of plans for Commonage farmers, which involves walking the commonages in order to assess them properly, and to propose the best stocking levels and environmental activities. In order to speed up the application process, I have provided that applications to join GLAS can be made immediately, at individual shareholder level, with the required Plan following later. Advisers will now have until 3 July, 2015 to submit the required commonage plans, allowing best use of summer conditions to walk the commonages.