Dáil Éireann Debate, Thursday - 14 December 2023
4. Deputy Holly Cairns asked the Minister for Agriculture, Food and the Marine whether his Department will make efforts to deliver ACRES payments to participating farmers without further delay; and if he will make a statement on the matter. [56100/23]
View answerThere has been significant buy-in from farmers for the ACRES scheme. It is great to see such engagement with environmental schemes. It was announced last week, however, that payments due in November will only begin to be rolled out next week. Some farmers will not receive payments under the ACRES co-operation scheme until late February. That will put them under significant financial pressure through the Christmas period. Will the Minister consider administering advance payments? How many farmers are affected by the delays?
I thank the Deputy for raising this issue. I have received many queries in the ten days since, unfortunately, we had to announce we would not be able to pay the farmers we had been working hard to pay in December. ACRES has been a great success, with significant uptake. It is working well in terms of getting farmers to participate in it. It is on course to make significant and expected payments to farmers. There was massive uptake of the scheme. We expected 30,000 farmers to apply this year but 46,000 applied. For the first time, I stepped in to accept all those 46,0000 applicants. Everybody who applied this year got into the scheme, participated in it and is due a payment. They will not be without a year where they are due a payment.
As 46,000 applicants were accepted, there was significant pressure on the advisers to administer the scheme. They did great work in terms of getting the scoring done. I extended the dates for scoring to be completed, given the numbers involved. The Department worked very hard to pay the farmers in the co-operation scheme and those in the general scheme by the end of November or in December. Unfortunately, we ran out of road in that regard and have not been able to make payments. In the context of systems development, checks and having it developed and in place in an effective way, it will not be possible to make all the payments that were due at the end of November or in December in time, despite everybody's best efforts. That is a source of great disappointment to me as Minister and to the team working on that.
We will be able to pay 18,000 farmers, namely, those in the general scheme, next week. As the co-operation scheme is more complicated in terms of system development, it will be early February before those in that scheme will begin receiving payments. Everybody is working hard to get this done I grew up on a farm and know the importance of payments coming in. I know this is a blow to farming families before Christmas. If have done everything I can to try to get the payments made. The team is working hard to get the payments out in the best timeframe possible.
I thank the Minister. As he is aware, farmers operate like any other business and structure their finances around payment dates. Farmers have spent significant amounts of money to introduce environmental measures on the basis of the assumption that they would receive payments in November to cover those costs. Given the delays, they are unable to pay their bills and interest can then accrue.
We cannot have a situation where people are left worse off when they sign up for a scheme to try to make a positive environmental impact. It is really important to try to instill confidence in these schemes. A way to potentially restore that trust in the scheme would be to ensure that farmers receive payments as soon as possible. I hear what the Minister is saying, but advance payments are common practice. Can the Minister consider administering some proportion of the ACRES payments to all the applicants before Christmas?
I examined whether there was some way that could be done. However, the ACRES payment is a blend. It comes within the framework of the Common Agricultural Policy, CAP, scheme and is co-funded nationally and with European money. We have to have an audit trail as to how we make those payments. Some 18,000 farmers will receive an 85% payment this month. Two thirds of the farmers in the general scheme will get their 85% advance. I wanted to be able to do it for everyone, but that is not that is not possible. The team is working to try to deliver that as quickly as possible. Because it is a scheme under the CAP, we are required to follow certain processes. We cannot step out of that. If we did, we would not be able to draw down the European funding. I can take a different and more flexible approach in respect of nationally funded schemes. For the liming scheme, for example, which only involves national funding, I am making an advance payment to all those by the end of this year because I have more discretion. With the CAP programme, we have to have it very clearly laid out and administered and auditable so that we actually draw down that funding. Every effort is being made. As I said, we wanted to be able to pay this year. Everybody was working massively hard to try to deliver it in December. Despite all those efforts, however, we have run out of road in terms of getting it done. We will be going into February as regards the co-operation stream measures. Others will continue to be paid in the meantime, however.
When the ACRES programme was expanded from 30,000 to 46,000 earlier this year, farmers obviously signed up on the assumption that if the Government was allowing 16,000 extra applications, there would be capacity in the system to deal with the increase. Clearly, that is not the case. The Department controls the scoring of the scheme and how many people can apply, but between the number of applicants and the complications of processing the new scheme, somehow, obviously, the Department was overwhelmed.
The payments were supposed to be administered in November. How many people were affected by this? At what point did it become clear to the Department that it would be impossible to process every application before the scheduled date? Had a capacity review been conducted within the Department before the scheme was expanded? Why, when it became clear the payments would not be made on time, were farmers not made aware immediately?
First, we did make it clear immediately whenever it was clear that it could not be done and that we had run out of road. That was approximately a week and a half ago. Up to that point, we were working on the basis of trying to move heaven and earth to see if we could get both the co-operation and general scheme paid by the end of this year. Then, we made clear and outlined what was going to be possible and where we were despite everyone's best efforts.
The Deputy is right. My decision to accept all 46,000 put massive pressure on the entire system. It put massive pressure on the advisers. We gave them extra time in the context of facilitating the scoring up to end of September. They really stepped up and worked massively hard to do that. It also put massive pressure on my staff in the Department. It was the right decision to make, and I stand by it. Had I not made that decision, there would only be 30,000 farmers in ACRES this year, not 46,000. All 46,000 have been able to participate and they will all get a payment. I put massive pressure on the staff to get that payment delivered by the end of December. That is not going to be possible for a number of applicants. As a result, the payment will not arrive for many of those in the co-operation scheme until the end of February. However, that is much better than getting no payment at all.
I thank the Minister.
If I had only stuck with 30,000, there would be 16,000 farmers who would not get a payment anytime this year and would not get it in February either.
I thank the Minister. We are way over time.
Every effort has been made, and I will continue to keep the pressure on. All of the team are working massively hard to deliver on this-----
Tá muid thar am.
-----in order to ensure that farmers get paid as quickly as possible for the great enthusiasm they have shown, and then next year to make sure it happens. It will be in the second year of the scheme. It will be up and running-----
I know it is the last day of the term, but we are way over time.
----- and operating in a much smoother way. We will make sure the payments are made within the calendar year.
I thank the Minister. We are way over time. That is his Christmas present.
