Mr. Brendan Gleeson:

Yes. First of all, in a way we are victims of our own success because the payments we make in 2023 are payments for 2024. The legal deadline for making those payments for the basic payment is the end of May, 2024 but we made those payments in October and December of 2023. Even last year when we were operating under a brand new system and had to develop schemes, our ANC payments were four weeks late while our big BISS payment was a week and half late. When I say late, I mean later than it would normally have been but we still got €1.8 billion in payments out. It means a great deal to us to try to meet those deadlines. When we agree targets under the charter, it is a signal of the commitment of the Department to these things. We are putting resources in place and we move them around, where necessary, to meet new pressures. There were several unanticipated pressures with schemes last year because of Ukraine, the weather and other factors. All of these things have an impact on the utilisation of the resource we have for these things. We are working hard all of the time to make things better. ACRES is a particularly complex scheme. Farmers have voted with their feet and the Deputy is absolutely right about that. In recognition of the fact that there were delays, we got an interim payment out to farmers because we did not want people to be disadvantaged financially. We were responsive to people's needs and I am pretty confident that we will have these problems ironed out by next year. Farmers will understand the scheme better next year, we will be set up to run it and things will run more smoothly. We are trying all of the time to improve and are really committed. I have really committed teams, one in Portlaoise and one in Wexford, who are trying really hard to get these payments out but it is complex stuff.