Michael Creed (Cork North West, Fine Gael) | Oireachtas source

During 2015, six new schemes were announced under the targeted agricultural modernisation scheme, TAMS II. These schemes were launched under the new rural development programme for 2014 to 2020 and are co-funded under the European Agricultural Fund for Rural Development. The financial allocation to each scheme for the full rural development programme period is as follows: the young farmer capital investment scheme has €120 million; the dairy equipment scheme has €50 million; the organic capital investment scheme has €8 million; the animal welfare, safety and nutrient storage scheme has €170 million; low-emission slurry spreading has €4 million; and the pig and poultry investment scheme has €17 million.

The schemes are open for applications in rolling three-month tranches. Approvals and part-approvals have issued in respect of 1,300 cases. Approvals are now issuing on an ongoing basis. The numbers of applications received in the first two tranches are as follows: the young farmer capital investment scheme saw 513 applications for tranche 1 and 620 applications for tranche 2; the dairy equipment scheme saw 1,088 applications for tranche 1 and 595 applications for tranche 2; the pig and poultry investment scheme saw 57 applications for tranche 1 and 38 applications for tranche 2; the scheme for low-emission slurry spreading saw 194 applications for tranche 1 and 263 applications for tranche 2; the animal welfare, safety and nutrient storage scheme saw 939 applications for tranche 1 and 607 applications for tranche 2; and the organic capital investment scheme saw 192 applications for tranche 1 and 99 applications for tranche 2. The total for tranche 1 is 2,983 and the total for tranche 2 is 2,222. When the number of applications received in tranche 3 to date are included, the total number of applications to date is 5,342. The TAMS information technology payment claim system is being finalised and payments will be made once the system is in place. I hope that will be ready to run in late July.

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