Ms Sharon Murphy:

In terms of the payments system, yes, when a new CAP process is introduced, a range of new rules and regulations must be put in place. The current CAP had a large number of changes made to it in terms of how it would operate. It did require, therefore, a lot of amendments to be put in place on our systems. It is, though, a new CAP and a new world. We had to look at how we would make payments as quickly as possible under that new system, and we did this. We opened our systems for applications in February 2023. We closed those on 29 May.

That is two weeks later than normal. That was because of the additional workload involved in those. We advised farmers as soon as we could, in March 2023, about the payment dates to give them certainty. Changes in the payment dates caused concern for farmers but we have been working through that process and are on track to not have the same issues occur. It is a totally different system with different monitoring and different performance reporting. We have been building and putting that into place. That is now there. We expect our payments for ANC will be back again in September 2024, as in previous years, and that from 16 October, the normal payment date, the usual payments like BISS, CRISS and the eco-scheme and all the new direct payments will be in line with previous years.