With just over one month to go to the closing date for GLAS, just under half of Minister Coveney’s targeted 30,000 GLAS applications have been created on its dedicated online system.

According to latest figures from the Department the number of GLAS applications created to date now stands at 14,385.

The figure is up from just over 10,000 less than two weeks ago.

The Minister for Agriculture Simon Coveney recently announced that he had extended the deadline for receipt of GLAS applications by three weeks to May 22.

GLAS online system still not fit for purpose

Despite almost 15,000 applications created to date, the Agricultural Consultants Association (ACA) remains critical of the Department of Agriculture’s dedicated online GLAS application system.

Speaking in the Oireachtas Agriculture committee recently President of the Agricultural Consultants Association (ACA), Tom Dawson said the system remains unfit for purpose with just over a month left until the deadline for receipt of applications.

While he noted that the GLAS system is continually being updated by the Department of Agriculture.

He said the rate at which the online facility for GLAS planners is being updated and fixes are being put into the system is too slow.

ACA President Tom Dawson

ACA President Tom Dawson

“We were been told yesterday evening that another new fix will come on the GLAS system this weekend coming.

“But that’s another week whereby we cannot go and properly complete GLAS applications.

“We are not happy with the rate of progress on the GLAS online system,” he said.

Dawson was keen to emphasise that time constraints in which consultants were operating with the deadline for receipt of GLAS applications May 22.

“If GLAS was a scheme that was closing at the end of August or the end of September we might not be too worried.

“But we have only a little over a month to go before the deadline. It is a system that isn’t fit for purpose,” he said.

“I do recognise that from a Department point of view they have done a lot of work on it, it has improved from where it was, but it’s not just there yet,” he said.