Dáil Éireann Debate, Tuesday - 30 January 2024
440. Deputy Niall Collins asked the Minister for Agriculture, Food and the Marine further to Parliamentary Question No. 1252 of 17 January 2024, if he could consider the request therein and restated in correspondence (details supplied); and if he will make a statement on the matter. [3888/24]
Amharc ar fhreagraI note that, further to my previous response, the question now being asked is whether further funding will be made available to allow all applicants to Tranche 2 to be accepted into ACRES.
As previously stated, €1.5 billion has been committed over the lifetime of the Scheme. A balance must be considered in allocating this funding, between accepting the appropriate number of applicants and ensuring the appropriate compensation is available for the applicants who carry out the measures as required under the Scheme. An independently verified costing exercise was carried out which calculated the payment levels. Using these levels of payment, it was determined that the maximum number of applicants that could be accepted into the scheme was 50,000.
I encouraged all interested farmers to apply for Tranche 1 and, following discussions with relevant stakeholders, I was able to announce that all 46,000 eligible applicants would be accepted.
This means that the budget will allow for in the region of 4,000 places to be taken up in Tranche 2. The application window has now closed, and eligibility checks will be carried out on the applications received. Following this, all eligible applications will be ranked and selected to determine which are successful. All applicants will be notified of their outcome in writing. There are currently no plans to increase the total number of contracts approved under ACRES Tranche 2 beyond what has already been stated.
