Commonage deadline of July 3 can’t be achieved

A JULY 3 deadline for the completion of Commonage Management Plans affecting hundreds of farmers across Connemara will be impossible to meet, according to farming and planners representatives.

As part of the individual GLAS plans to be completed by April 30 next, hill and commonage farmers – plus the planners – are facing a July 3 deadline for the completion of the Commonage Management Plan (the old Commonage Framework Plan).

With thousands of acres of hill land to be walked before this Commonage Management Plan can be drawn up, planners and farm representatives have stated categorically, that the July 3 deadline is an impossible one.

“This deadline is completely and totally unrealistic – it cannot be met and especially in the context of the workloads faced by planners involved in GLAS and the Basic Payments Scheme.

“This deadline must be moved by a couple of months at least to give some kind of realistic timescale for the Commonage Plan to be drawn up,” said Brendan Joyce of the Irish Natura and Hill Farmers Association.

He also said that a problem of equal importance for hill and commonage farmers ‘signing up’ for GLAS by April 30, was that they were committing to a Commonage Plan not yet drawn up that could fall foul of future Dept. of Agriculture inspections.

“These farmers who individually go into GLAS by the end of April are also signing up for a plan that they don’t know the contents of. It’s like shootin’ in the dark,” said Brendan Joyce.

Agricultural Consultant and Planner, Vincent Costello, from New Inn, said that given the scale of the work involved in drawing up a Commonage Management Plan, the July 3 deadline – announced earlier this month – would be be impossible to meet.

“Thousands of acres of land have to be walked and looked at in detail before such a plan can be drawn up. This is a job that requires a lot of time, a lot of care and a lot of walking – it cannot be done before July 3,” said Vincent Costello.

Brendan Joyce also said that the Dept. had to give a commitment that they would accept the Commonage Plans drawn up by professional planners, or else farmers would be facing into an impossible situation.

“We have no problem at all with a plan (Commonage Management) possibly having to be amended a couple of years down the road if major changes occurred and we have no problem with farmers implementing the plan as it’s outlined.

“But what we cannot have is the Department coming back to individual farmers and penalising because they (the Dept.) start picking holes in the original Commonage Plan,” said Brendan Joyce.