Dáil Éireann Debate, Tuesday - 4 March 2025
584. Deputy Colm Burke asked the Minister for Agriculture, Food and the Marine the steps being taken to ensure that all successful applicants of ACRES and ACRES-Cooperation schemes receive outstanding payments for 2023 and 2024; and if he will make a statement on the matter. [9633/25]
View answerA total of €436 million has been paid out to farmers to date in respect of their participation in the Agri-Climate Rural Environment Scheme (ACRES).
My Department has made significant progress in 2024. Almost all ACRES participants have received a payment (either interim or final) in respect of their participation in the Scheme in 2023, and remaining balancing payments continue to be processed.
ACRES advance payments for the 2024 scheme year commenced on 22 November 2024 as scheduled. Currently, a total of €188.9 million has been paid in advance payments in respect of the 2024 scheme year to 43,822 ACRES participants that have cleared all the required prepayment checks.
As is the case with all EU co-funded schemes, claims for payments under ACRES must pass regulatory controls and validations before payment can issue.
The issues which are impacting on the making of certain payments have been identified as primarily due to:
• Contract and ownership / partnership cases.
• Issues with scorecards (incorrect score, scorecards not submitted, alignment of scorecards.)
• Alignment of ACRES data with latest BISS information.
My Department is continuing to investigate and progress all cases that have not yet received payments while also developing the required IT functionality. As each case is resolved, it is added to the next scheduled pay run. Pay runs are taking place fortnightly in order to ensure that these payments are issued in a timely manner.
My Department will be issuing regular online updates over the coming period on the progress being made, with the overarching objective of having all outstanding payments in respect of farmers’ participation in ACRES in 2023 and 2024 made by the end of June.
