Mr. Michael Biggins:

I thank the Chair. ACRES has been two years in gestation, as they call it. People are supposed to sign up in six weeks. It is a fiasco in the context of planners, consultants, etc.; they are closing their doors to clients at this stage. There is talk of a two-week extension. That will not suffice. They are just not able get their clients signed up in that short space of time. We suggest that it should go until the end of the year and that the decision as to who qualifies be made in January. The heat would be taken out of the situation if the Department stated that people who do not get into tranche 1 - the current tranche - but who get into tranche 2 will get a payment in 2023. Farmers cannot afford a gap year. The Teagasc national farm survey for 2021 indicates that 42.1% of cattle-rearing farmers' incomes came from GLAS in the period 2017-21. Among other cattle and sheep farmers, it accounted for nearly 25%. Those farmers cannot afford a situation where they are not in ACRES or some other environmental scheme. There is a way around this. It would take the heat out of the mad rush to get into tranche 1 if the Department stated that it will guarantee an upfront payment in 2023. The latter was done in the context of REPS. There is a precedent. It should be remembered that tranche 2 will not open until the fourth quarter of 2023. That is why farmers are at loggerheads with their planners. The planners are in a no-win situation because farmers are their clients and they are being obliged to refuse them. What is happening is creating a logjam that is not necessary.