Dr. Mary Carey:

I thank the Chairman and the committee for the opportunity to address it this evening on a number of schemes under the Department's remit. I am head of the Department's basic payments and rural development schemes division in Portlaoise. As already outlined by the Acting Chairman, I am joined by my colleagues Fran Morrin, Jack Nolan, Peter Harte, Josephine Brennan and Pat Morrison.

The basic payment scheme, BPS, is an income support paid to farmers. The payment is conditional on a range of good agricultural and environmental conditions and statutory management requirements being met. The basic payment scheme is 100% EU-funded.

Payments under the basic payment scheme are delivered in two instalments, with an advance payment issuing in mid-October and a balancing payment issuing in early December. For the past number of years, we have, with EU Commission approval, paid a higher advance rate of 70%, instead of the standard 50%. We also make the advance payment on the first day allowed under the EU regulations, that is16 October.

In October 2022, an advance payment of 70% was paid to 94% of all eligible applicants. The balancing payments commenced on schedule on 1 December. To-date, 120,705 farmers have been paid €786 million for the 2022 basic payment scheme year, bringing the total direct payments spend to more than €1.14 billion. More than 99% of all eligible applicants have received their BPS payment. The Department continues to process, as a matter of urgency, all remaining cases for payment as any outstanding queries are addressed.

In 2023, the basic payment scheme will be replaced by a new scheme under Ireland's Common Agricultural Policy, CAP, strategic plan.

The new scheme is called the basic income support for sustainability, BISS. Applications for BISS and other area-related schemes will open in February 2023 and close on Monday, 15 May 2023. Since 2018, all farmers must apply online for their basic payments. To help farmers, the Department organises basic payment scheme, BPS, clinics around the country, where farmers can go in and a Department official will submit their applications for them. The Department ran 20 of these BPS clinics in 2022, and we hope to do the same in 2023.

Turning to organics, the programme for Government has a target of 7.5% of all land to be farmed organically by 2030. The allocation of €256 million in our CAP strategic plan, CSP, is testament to our aim of achieving and hopefully exceeding this target.

The 2023 organic farming scheme, OFS, budget sees funding of €37 million for the organic farming scheme - an 80% increase on last year. There has been a 20% increase in applications to join the organic farming scheme in 2022 as compared with 2021, bringing in an expected additional 17,000 ha. Overall there has been an increase of 35% of land being farmed organically over the past two years. The indicators for success and platform for further gains are already evident.

The current scheme closed on 9 December 2022 and there has been a total of 2,100 new applicants. The scheme will reopen in 2023.

Turning to the agri-climate rural environment scheme, ACRES, this scheme opened for applications on 17 October 2022 and closed last Wednesday night. More than 46,000 applications were received, which demonstrates the commitment by farmers to avail of supports to assist them to meet climate, biodiversity and environmental needs.

In ACRES, there are two approaches: the ACRES co-operation approach, which is targeted at certain high nature value lands; and the ACRES general, available nationally outside the eight co-operation zones. It is considered that these twin approaches will achieve broader environmental and biodiversity benefits.

Learnings from previous schemes, including the green, low-carbon, agri-environment scheme, GLAS, the European innovation partnerships, ElPs and the results-based environment agri-pilot programme, REAP, informed the design of ACRES. The locally-adapted and hybrid results-based agri-environment scheme delivery model evident in ACRES has been successfully tried and tested in the EIP projects. The ACRES co-operation is a scaling up of those initial projects to enable as many farmers as possible to participate in collaborative measures to contribute to long-term environmental improvement at a landscape level.

The development of the ACRES co-operation approach was also the culmination of extensive engagement with those previously involved in ElPs and Government bodies such as the Nationals Parks and Wildlife Service. The principle of the co-operation approach, and the associated eight project teams, is that they will facilitate the effective implementation of locally targeted and adapted agri-environment measures in identified high environmental priority areas across the country.

The Government has committed €1.5 billion to ACRES over the duration of the scheme. There was a range of actions from which farmers could choose when applying for ACRES and those actions, and associated payment rates, have been designed to contribute to our efforts to address climate, biodiversity and environmental issues. A key objective was to design actions that were understandable and implementable by farmers, and thereby contribute to the ongoing development of sustainable farming practices.

As members of the committee will be aware, the beef data and genomics programme, BDGP, which was included in the Rural Development Programme 2014 - 2020, will end on 31 December 2022. The scheme came into operation over two tranches in 2015 and 2017. In total, €300 million was allocated to the scheme from the rural development programme, RDP. Approximately 22,500 farmers participated in BDGP I during the period 2015 - 2020 while just over 1,500 farmers participated in BDGP II, which commenced in 2017. The numbers participating in BDGP I during the transitional scheme years of 2021 and 2022 fell to approximately 17,000. The Department paid out €28 million in BDGP I and II payments in recent days.

In 2023, the BDGP scheme will be replaced by the suckler carbon efficiency programme, SCEP. Applications for SCEP, which is a multi-annual scheme, will open in March 2023 and close in May 2023. There are four mandatory actions in the scheme, namely replacement strategy, genomics, weighing and surveys.

Turning to the beef environmental efficiency programme, BEEP, the Department also operated the Exchequer-funded beef environmental efficiency programme - suckler, BEEP-S, programme in 2022, as it has done since 2019. Applications for the scheme opened in March 2022 and closed in May 2022. In early December 2022, 23,764 participants in the scheme were paid a total of €38.7 million.

In 2023, the Exchequer-funded beef welfare scheme will replace the current BEEP-S, as one of the main elements of the current BEEP-S, namely weighing, is now an integral element of the SCEP. The final make-up of the scheme is currently being decided with the scheme expected to open for applications in late July 2023.

The targeted agricultural modernisation scheme, TAMS, continues to be a hugely successful and beneficial scheme that will continue in 2023. As TAMS funding for 2023 will remain under the RDP, an amendment was required to be submitted to the European Commission. The proposed changes were formally submitted to the European Commission for approval on 29 October 2022.

The proposed changes relate to a higher grant rate of 60% in respect of investments under the low emission spreading equipment, farm safety scheme, organic capital investment scheme and the solar scheme, in line with Government priorities. Young farmers and women farmers will be also provided with grant aid for capital investments at an enhanced grant rate of 60% providing they meet the necessary eligibility requirements.

Changes to the investment ceilings are also proposed, including that the ceiling for investments will be reset at €90,000 per holding for the remaining years of the RDP, a stand-alone investment ceiling of €90,000 for solar installation will be put in place, and the ceiling for investment for the pig and poultry investment strand of support will increase to €500,000. The low emissions slurry-spreading equipment investment ceiling will remain in place.

It is also proposed to include equine investments in TAMS 3, such as facilities for housing and training of horses, manure storage, horse-specific safety items and equine fencing.

The terms and conditions of the scheme and the investment list for grant-aided items are currently being finalised. All reference costs for new and existing investments are also being reviewed.

My colleagues and I would be happy to take any questions the committee may have. Mr. Morrin and I will answer any questions in relation to BPS. Mr. Nolan will answer any question in relation to organics. Dr. Brennan and Mr. Morrison will answer any questions in relation to ACRES. Mr. Harte will answer any questions in relation to the BDGP and BEEP, and Dr. Brennan will answer any questions in relation to TAMS.