I wish to ask the Taoiseach or the Minister for Agriculture, Food and the Marine, Deputy Creed, for a clear explanation as to why up to 10,000 of 38,000 farmers in the green, low-carbon, agri-environment scheme, GLAS, are still waiting on their payments. Why is this? It is a real failure on the Minister's and the Department's behalf. Will the Minister also give a clear explanation and outline when the farmers will get paid? The Minister knows it is a breach of the farmers' charter. They were due to be paid in December. The average payment is €4,500 and farm families who were expecting this in advance of Christmas have been put in a very difficult position because they still do not have it.

I will ask the Minister for Agriculture, Food and the Marine, Deputy Creed to answer that.

I thank Deputy McConalogue for raising this issue. It has also been raised by speakers on other days. I appreciate the anxiety it is causing. GLAS is one of the most successful schemes in the compendium of schemes operated by the Department. It has 38,000 beneficiaries. We opened the scheme recently so the figure is now in excess of 50,000. We have a difficulty. There are in the region of 10,000 applications still awaiting payment of the initial 85%. I met this morning senior officials in my Department on the IT and administration side. I am satisfied it is not a resource issue. There are a cohort of payments that we are working through as quickly as possible and we hope to make a further tranche of payments this week. I am assured that all the necessary resources required in IT and administrative staff are available. We are working to try to clear this backlog as quickly as possible.