Martin Heydon (Kildare South, Fine Gael) | Oireachtas source

I thank Deputy Cooney for his comments and the point he made regarding ACRES. I know, from having dealt with him with regard to individual cases in Clare, that this has been a very difficult issue for many of his constituents. I was determined to do two things. One was to address the 14,500 farmers who were due money when I came into this role as quickly as possible. The other was to make sure that the solutions put in place were permanent solutions and not a quick fix, that we put in place the IT functionality and that we got to the bottom of each cohort's issues in order that they do not face these problems again next year and that a similar number of farmers are not kept waiting.

ACRES is a phenomenal scheme. More than €500 million has been paid out to Irish farmers since 2023, but a dark cloud hangs over it because not every farmer was paid. My approach has been about addressing that for each farmer who was unpaid and ensuring he or she is paid as quickly as possible while at the same time making sure that those who were not impacted by that got their balance and payments in 2024 as expected. We managed to achieve that. I believe we are now in a space where the solutions that have been put in place are permanent and we will not see anything similar to these challenges in the coming years.