Dr. Frank O'Mara:

I will deal with ACRES and farmers being excluded. We are very busy at present, obviously, as are the private consultants, in preparing applications on behalf of farmers to the ACRES scheme. Mr. Curran might give details of the numbers. We have more than 40,000 clients, 16,000 of whom have asked us to prepare an application for them for ACRES. With a deadline of 21 November, we will not get through all that number. We will get through a good number - there is much work to be done between now and then - but we certainly will not be able to get through them all. We have made that known to the Department and to the Minister and suggested an extension would be very helpful in terms of getting more of them through. That is being considered but we have not heard any details of it yet. At present, we are working to that 21 November deadline.

In terms of farmers and the perception of them in relation to the environment, it is a contested space. The role of farmers, whether in climate or water quality, has been much debated in recent years. People who are informed on it would acknowledge that Irish farmers do a pretty good job in terms of their stewardship of the environment, and that is reflected in their high participation rate in schemes such as ACRES or, previous to that, GLAS etc.

In terms of the payment rates, I might hand over to Mr. Curran to deal with the detail of that. They are increased in ACRES compared with the previous scheme. Mr. Curran might deal with the number of applications, where we are at and the payment rates.