Dáil Éireann Debate, Thursday - 21 October 2021
76. Deputy Brendan Smith asked the Minister for Agriculture, Food and the Marine if TAMS grant aid will be increased for the purchase of low emission slurry spreading machinery; and if he will make a statement on the matter. [51706/21]
View answerI am pleased that TAMS has proved to be a very successful scheme to date in terms of uptake. Total expenditure under the suite of seven measures available under TAMS, including transitional expenditure, has now exceeded €313m with commitments of an additional €145m made to approved scheme participants who have yet to draw down payment for these commitments.
Some 44,780 applications have been approved under the TAMS scheme to date, with the Low Emission Slurry Spreading Equipment Scheme (LESS) proving to be exceptionally popular. To date, 4,274 applicants have been paid over €48m. Over 9,000 approvals have issued to applicants with LESS investments representing a total commitment of over €105m under the scheme. I would like to encourage any farmer with a payment claim outstanding for LESS or any of the other TAMS measures to submit them on the online system as soon as possible to allow for the early issue of payment.
All outstanding approvals issued represent potential outstanding liabilities for the Department and we must have a budget in place to pay these claims. As a result, it is not possible to consider increasing the grant aid for LESS equipment at this time.
Final decisions have not yet been made in relation to the interventions to be included in the CAP Strategic Plan (CSP)(2023-2027). To allow for the submission of the draft CSP by 1st January 2022, the Department facilitated a public consultation on the draft CSP and written submissions were invited from interested parties by the closing date of 3rd September 2021. These submissions are currently being evaluated and ongoing stakeholder and further public consultation are continuing to take place.
