Mr. Paul Savage:

I might ask Mr. Muldowney to come in on that in a moment. I might ask him to comment on the reference costs as well, after an introductory comment from myself. I want to come back to the point made about the advisers, not just on the problems when it comes to making payments, but problems regarding technology and advisory engagement over the course of the scheme. We have had issues from time to time with access and functioning of systems. There will always be problems with new schemes or systems being put in place, as well as with new technology and new methods being applied to the schemes that might not have been the case previously. There will be issues there, even in terms of capacity, because of the sheer volume of information that is being processed and the number of people who have to engage with the system. We have over 850 advisers around the country who are engaging with ACRES. There will be problems from time to time from an IT point of view. It happens in all walks of life. We try to resolve those issues as quickly as we can. Our IT colleagues are very efficient at resolving those issues where they involve connectivity or capacity issues in order that people can get access. On the administration side, we try to ensure that we are engaging with advisers on an ongoing basis, and try to identify those issues and have them resolved as soon as we can.

There were issues, for instance, where advisers might not have put in the full application. They had put in the farm sustainability plan and thought they had pressed the submit button but they had not. When we were going back over it, we then had not accepted those applications as fully valid applications. When it came to our attention, we went back and reviewed those applications and took action where appropriate. We are happy to do that and to follow up on those things. In the day-to-day access to and functioning of systems, we monitor that closely and we try to respond as quickly as we can to fix those issues. That will again, continue to be a feature of how we do things. As the systems bed down and as we go through this first year of payments and on into the second year, the likelihood is that those systems will settle down and the capacity issues will tend to resolve themselves as people become more familiar with the systems as well. That should be less of a feature for the future. Again, it is something that we will keep under ongoing review.

I will ask Mr. Muldowney to come in on that water quality issue that the Senator mentioned. On the TAMS reference costs, there has been some commentary around this. We will review reference costs and do it on an ongoing basis. The last time we reviewed them was in late 2022 and early 2023, before we introduced TAMS. Mr. Muldowney can correct me if I am wrong but that was the last review. From the evidence we have seen, we are still not too far off the mark as far as reference costs are concerned. We will carry out a review and will look at the costs, the receipts and the evidence we have from the current scheme regarding people who have got their approvals and submitted their claims. We will look at those and at what the evidence is telling us. We will consider it in the broader background from an economic point of view of material and labour costs and other things that are feeding into the equation as well. That will be a feature. We will carry out a fairly extensive review in 2025 when we have the evidence fully there, based on the current payments we have coming through. That should allow us to address any particular issue regarding reference costs being out of kilter. Overall, the evidence is that, in large parts of TAMS, we are still on the money in respect of what the reference costs are, with some exceptions. Does Mr. Muldowney wish to comment any further on that or on the water quality point from earlier?