Dáil Éireann Debate, Thursday - 8 March 2018
412. Deputy Michael Fitzmaurice asked the Minister for Agriculture, Food and the Marine the cost of implementing the TAMS scheme to include the staff and expert fees that developed the scheme in addition to the cost of the information technology infrastructure; and if he will make a statement on the matter. [11064/18]
View answerTAMS II is one of a number of schemes rolled out across the Department under the Rural Development Programme. As with other RDP schemes, a range of Department staff have inputted and continue to input to both the design and implementation of the scheme from areas such as policy development, IT and the inspectorate.
Given the number of these schemes commencing and in operation at any one time and also the residual infrastructure from previous RDP schemes which is used for schemes under the current Programme, it is not possible to accurately disaggregate the figures requested from the overall expenditure to outline the costs for any single scheme.
To date, the TAMS scheme is operating extremely efficiently and over 13,000 approvals have issued to farmers across the country to invest in the infrastructure of their farms. Payments are now averaging over €1m per week to farmers.
