GLAS thread

Qprmeath wrote: »

Bit of a long story but my membership of Glas was terminated in 2018. I was paid in 16 and 17 as normal. Then paid in 18 but had to repay it. Then nothing in 19 and 20 and now scheme is over. So I’ve been appealing which dragged on and on obviously not helped by the Covid situation.. Last week had my termination reduced to a penalty situation. Anyone know will I get my 18 money back or anything for 19 and 20?

What was the reason for the termination? You gotta stay onto of these things, every few pound counts

Well did everyone get their WBC in by the deadline ?

TITANIUM. wrote: »

What was the reason for the termination? You gotta stay onto of these things, every few pound counts

Failure to establish catch crop.
Very slow establishing on dry ground in driest part of country. Sanction is now that only a portion of it didn’t grow.
Probably should have tilled more but with seed costing €7/800 would not have made sense,

Sami23 wrote: »

Well did everyone get their WBC in by the deadline ?

Got it sowed yesterday
Fields are wet and could do with another 2 weeks, but deadlines are deadlines

Qprmeath wrote: »

If ye get the joyless inspector I had you’ll all be in trouble! Spoke to him on day of inspection but never made me aware how unhappy he was. Didn’t find out I was removed until 6 months later by letter.

These are the nasty ones. Got a burn over 20 years ago on sucklers like that. Told me on the day it would be a minor penalty but when he went into the office he wrote recommending full refusal in the inspection sheet.

The termination is now considered invalid I would assume and thus any consequences null and void. IMO you're entitled to full payment on 19 and 20.
One would have to exhaust the options with the Dept of resolving it but the Ombudsman would be your ultimate port of call.
TMK Glas is a legal contract between you, the farmer and the Dept of Ag. The Dept terminated that and it's been decided by some appeal officer that they were incorrect as it was, too harsh a penalty relative to the offence.

Alibaba wrote: »

That makes a lot of sense to me.

If you have a solid case and it looks as if you must have , as your termination was reversed and reduced to a penalty then you must have a decent chance of getting back 19/20

Did you ask them ?

Only got appeal result end of last week. Was giving it bit of time before I dug any deeper as the department works slowly in these situations. My planner who is hugely experienced can’t give me a definitive answer on it. Hence was wondering had anyone else had the experience?

Alibaba wrote: »

I'd say just keep on to the Department till you get an answer.

Just keep emailing them , ( phone can be a nightmare , press 1 , 2 , 3 etc and waiting for ages ) . But either way just get an answer from them.

I won an appeal myself a few years ago , with the huge help of IFA as I was advising earlier.
You don't even have to be a member , I was , but as far as I know they'd help anyone.
Tried politicians , waste of time .. would still be waiting.

But I'd say you're not that far gone yet , you've won you're appeal so you have a decent chance of getting refunded 2019 and 20.

Best of luck

Thanks everyone, will give it a couple of weeks before making enquiries. Wonder will I get any correspondence from Dept. to clarify things. Considering this has been going on nearly 3 years I won’t hold my breath.

Base price wrote: »

Article in the Farmers Journal today about a farmer that appealed and won his case after been thrown out of GLAS -

https://www.farmersjournal.ie/farmer-wrongly-expelled-from-glas-over-slurry-spreading-627358

Arra ffs I got thrown out for making a dogs dinner of filling out the form for importing slurry. I appealed and got back in. I got back in on a technicality. Make sure they have dotted the I’s and crossed the T’s on all correspondence they send you out.

MIKEKC wrote: »

The fact that a few people won their cases is getting a lot of publicity. About 130 appeals were made to the ombudsman last year no information on how the majority got on

Judging by the attitude of the inspector during my appeals I reckon the inspectors must be harbouring a fair bit of negativity towards the whole process. Not happy being continually undermined.

One bag of 18 6 12 to the acre, sowed 22 days ago on a glas parcel. Any chance of nitrogen still being in grass. Growth has being slow & Tractor tracks still visible.

Jb1989 wrote: »

On a side note, it must take a certain type of person, in the majority of cases, to become an inspector.

Most of farm and revenue inspectors, maybe garda's too, are and need to be ruthless in their job.

They come up with a conclusion, often times with a sharp and demanding tone, and it's up to you to prove your innocence.

You need to be brassnecked in that game, the opposite of other people that would be soft, easygoing and polite.

Maybe, they are just like that during their working hours , and out of hours, they are then soft, easygoing and polite.

I suppose as with everything, some people will be better/worse than others..

I wonder do they start out ok, and then after years of going into farners and listening to excuses and bull**** day after day do they just get a bit hard?

Do we as farmers live in a bit of a bubble? As farmers, we kinda do our own thing the majority of the time.
But for schemes the criteria are set, and maybe it doesn’t suit us sometimes...

Like, in my day job, if a customer gave us a spec and said do this, and we got back to them and said we did it all, 100%, but really we didn’t. And we didn’t tell them the bits we didn’t do til they pointed it out to us...
I don’t think it would go down well, you could see why they might not be happy
.

Nekarsulm wrote: »

Things like this, where you have succeeded in an appeal against a penalty, don't need to wait for a particular "payment run".
There are payment runs every day.
Somebody prepares a manual payment document and emails it to the payments section.
It gets processed , and picked up on the overnight run.
If you are due payment for a number of years, each year is processed separately.
Will be in your account in 3 working days.

Tried to reply to your pm, your inbox is full. Thanks for that

Base price wrote: »

The disc mower is greased up, with a few new blades and on the tractor ready for the LIPP in the morning. Unfortunately a lot of the docks have gone to seed so the next generation are in the ground.
What ever new "environmental" schemes come into place in the next few years I doubt we will sign up for anything similar to LIPP. IMO the restriction on topping and weed wiping benefits the development of huge numbers of docks, ragwort, etc to the detriment of our traditional grazing pasture.

I thought weed wiping was allowed????
I definitely see where you're coming from though. I put some of my poorer areas in as LIPP and its thoroughly overrun now with weeds and rushes

Anyone know of spear thistles are a biennial weed?
Spent a couple of days last summer spot spraying them on LIPP fields, and got a very satisfying kill.
This year, you'd think I spent the time seeding them, field as bad as ever, if not worse...

kk.man wrote: »

Spot spraying of all weeds are allowed.

Note.. No topping till 2nd July.. The 1st is inclusive.

I'd be a very old woman if I managed to get around our LIPP plots and spot spray all the weeds.

You are correct in that we cannot top until midnight today - I nearly forgot that myself such was my excitement of hearing the disc mower revving up and seeing the feckin weeds fall in it's wake

Hard Knocks wrote: »

Happy cutting/topping folks

Bit fuc**ing late now and rain due tomorrow for for THM

Just wondering was there a balancing payment for Glas paid out in first week or so of July?

21st April this year, there was a balanceing payment received.

Same payment other years varied from May end, to June end.

3 months later still not a cent received. Email regularly. Long line of excuses.

Like most people here I extended my glas by a year,but I don’t remember getting anything to confirm that I did, did anybody here get confirmation that there contract was exstended by a year?