The issuing of balancing payments for the Green Low-Carbon Agri-Environment Scheme (GLAS) will commence from this Friday (May 18) onwards, a source in the Department of Agriculture, Food and the Marine has confirmed.

The 2017 balancing payments, worth 15% of the total figure, have been given the green light following the completion of checks by the department.

The other 85% payment began issuing to farmers in GLAS and those in the Agri-Environment Options Scheme (AEOS) back in late November.

According to the department, GLAS 2017 advance payments made to eligible applicants amounted to €170.4 million.

The department added that the total GLAS Training Payments issued were valued at €9.64 million.

129,700 BPS applications received

Earlier today, the Minister for Agriculture, Food and the Marine, Michael Creed, has today confirmed that over 129,700 farmers applied online for their 2018 Basic Payment Scheme (BPS) in advance of the May 15 deadline.

This figure is in line with application numbers for previous years, according to the Department of Agriculture.

In addition, over 17,800 Transfer of Entitlement applications have been received online by the May 15 deadline.

2018 was the first year that all applications for the BPS and Transfer of Entitlements were to be made online.

The minister said: “I am very happy to confirm that so many Irish farmers have met the requirement to apply online in 2018.

“My department has put a range of supports in place to help farmers make this transition, and the move to online application has proved to be very successful.”