Dáil Éireann Debate, Thursday - 30 March 2017
238. Deputy Charlie McConalogue asked the Minister for Agriculture, Food and the Marine the amount of expenditure incurred to date under the TAMS, targeted agricultural modernisation scheme, 2 scheme since it was launched on an annual basis in tabular form; the annual amount of funding originally allocated for each respective year; and if he will make a statement on the matter. [15890/17]
View answerTAMS is a demand-led on-farm investment scheme funded from the Rural Development Programme. The aim of the scheme is to encourage capital investment in a number of target areas which will promote, in particular, increased competitiveness and sustainability. The overall budget for the TAMS II Schemes over the course of the Rural Development Programme 2014-2020 is €395m. Over 10,000 applications have been received so far. Of these over 7,000 applicants have been given approval to go ahead with the capital investment. The payment claim system which has been open since July 2016 has received over 1,100 payment claims and of these, over 660 have been paid. Approvals are handled on a tranche basis and payment claims are processed on a continuous basis. The expenditure on TAMS II Schemes in 2016 was €3.970m and the expenditure to date in 2017 is €4.626m. The budget for 2016 was €28m and the budget for 2017 is €50m.
