Advisor Approvals for Commonages.

The Basic Payment Scheme Application period is behind us, the commonage planning campaign will soon begin. As of now Advisors have been appointed/ applied for 264 commonages out of a national total of approx. 4,500. The total numbers however mask some very pronounced regional disparities. Of particular interest is that Galway accounts for almost 40% of the national total, this is a huge proportion, considering that Galway only has about 11% of the total number of commonages over 10 Ha in size. Mayo also has a very respectable 25% of the National total (although Mayo has around 50% more commonages than Galway). In total Galway and Mayo account for almost 2/3 of the commonages where advisors have expressed an interest. At the other end of the scale the situation in Munster continues to be very weak with only 14 commonages in Tipperary, 10 in Kerry, 4 in Cork, 1 in Clare and none at all in Waterford (an important commonage county). The full list showing the progress in appointing advisors on a county basis is shown below.

The level of activity in each county is not surprisingly closely linked to the counties where the leading commonage advisors operate. Four out of the ten most active advisors (including two out of the top three) have their principal area of operation in Galway. This more than anything else explains why the level of activity in Galway is so high. In all likelihood, competition between these operators has driven them and others to a greater level of activity, thus explaining the exceptional level of progress in the county. It is also no surprise that 12 commonage counties show no activity and that only 5 have commonages (with advisors) in the double figures.

Of course the numbers of commonages are not everything. The commonages with advisors appointed vary enormously in size and in the number of shareholders involved. A fairly large proportion of them have very small numbers of shareholders although there are some like Knockadav in Galway (where Fergal Monaghan is the Advisor) with 49 farmers claiming UAA.

 Advisors in Galway cannot be accused of cherry picking the easier commonages, Knockadav already mentioned is vast (1,753 Ha) and Davillaun where Pat Burke has applied to be the advisor is a rocky offshore island halfway out to Inishbofin, with no landing place and accessible only in the best of sea conditions. I know from experience with monitoring commonages that this particular site will be very challenging and any fee hard earned.

It should also be noted that not all of these commonages will proceed to a successful Commonage Management Plan, there are quite a few where the number of GLAS applicants will be very small and where the production of a plan will be completely unviable from both a financial perspective and from the stocking burden placed on one or two individuals.

Despite the level of progress in Galway, the situation nationally is very worrying, a little over 6% of commonages have an advisor with only 2 weeks until the close of applications for these positions. Undoubtedly with GLAS and the BPS behind us, more applications for the commonage advisor roles can be expected before June 12th. Will there be enough to deliver the level of progress needed?

Only time will tell.

County	No. of Commonages with an Advisor	% of National Total
Galway	104	40.31
Mayo	66	25.58
Donegal	35	13.57
Tipperary	14	5.43
Kerry	10	3.88
Leitrim	9	3.49
Sligo	6	2.33
Cavan	4	1.55
Cork	4	1.55
Wicklow	3	1.16
Clare	1	0.39
Laois	1	0.39
Roscommon	1	0.39