Over 26,000 GLAS applications were formally submitted to the the Department of Agriculture before the deadline of May 26.

Last week the Minister for Agriculture, Simon Coveney, took the decision to extend the deadline for submission of GLAS applications for a second time.

The decision came in the wake of only half of the anticipated final number of GLAS applications being submitted on the Department of Agriculture’s online system less than a week before the initial closing date.

The final total of submitted application is still shy of the 30,000 applicants the Minister hoped to approve at the outset of the scheme.

However, in recent weeks the Minister did concede that on the basis of progress to date, he would estimate in the region of 25,000 GLAS applications will be submitted before the closing date.

Also Read: Everything You Need To Know About GLAS

Looking at the total number of applications submitted more closely shows that some 37% of applications were farmers in both Tier 1 and 3 categories with the final 25% of applicants qualifying for Tier 2 status.

County Applications Submitted
Broken Down by Tier
Total Tier 1 Tier 2 Tier 3
Carlow 299 136 97 66
Cavan 961 169 464 328
Clare 1,684 714 197 773
Cork 2,347 1,041 335 971
Donegal 2,043 1,075 269 699
Dublin 66 21 19 26
Galway 3,250 1,467 907 876
Kerry 1,853 1,178 170 505
Kildare 305 61 119 125
Kilkenny 473 130 123 219
Laois 393 132 147 114
Leitrim 1,067 258 314 495
Limerick 1,130 418 217 495
Longford 536 73 236 227
Louth 160 65 38 57
Mayo 2,681 1,420 379 882
Meath 481 74 231 176
Monaghan 611 53 250 308
Offaly 505 88 198 219
Roscommon 1,585 260 783 542
Sligo 978 327 133 518
Tipperary 1,233 393 207 632
Waterford 393 165 43 185
Westmeath 680 71 344 265
Wexford 859 232 325 302
Wicklow 362 131 125 106
Totals 26,935 10,152 6,670 10,111

For those who can’t get their application in for the first tranche, the Minister said the Department is planning to reopen GLAS again for submissions in September.

He said it is anticipated GLAS contracts will commence for those in the first tranche from October 1 with an estimated expenditure of €20m this year.

“Its no big deal if you don’t meet the GLAS deadline,” he said recently.

According to the Minister, farmers in the second tranche will formally be in GLAS for January 1.

By next year the Minister said there will be about 35,000 farmers in GLAS.