Damien English (Meath West, Fine Gael) | Oireachtas source

I thank Deputy Ferris for raising this issue. I understood he wanted to discuss TAMS, but I will try to cover other matters as best I can. I will set out the current position regarding the targeted agricultural modernisation scheme, TAMS II. During 2015, a suite of six measures were announced under TAMS II. These measures were launched under the new rural development programme 2014-20 and are co-funded under the European agricultural fund for rural development.

The measures provide grants for capital investment in physical assets and there are six headings, which the Deputy will know. Among the objectives of the scheme are to enable growth in competitiveness in the sector, address environmental and climate change issues, support increased efficiency in holdings and improve animal health and welfare. In addition to these objectives, the young farmers capital investment scheme aims to address one of the key structural issues in the sector by specifically targeting support at young trained farmers by offering them a greater rate of aid intensity, that is, 60% of grant aid compared to a standard rate of 40%.

In March this year, an additional measure, the tillage capital investment scheme, was launched. One of the objectives of this scheme was to facilitate the tillage sector to develop a targeted and precise approach, focusing on environmental dividends, efficiency and growth.

Specific areas of investment under the tillage measure include minimum disturbance tillage equipment, sprayers, rain water harvesting, grain storage and grain dryers. As with all measures, applications must be made online, either by the farmer or an adviser authorised to act on his or her behalf. TAMS II is opened in rolling three month tranches. The next closing date for applications under the first tranche of the tillage measure and the seventh tranche of the other measures is 30 June 2017. The financial allocation for TAMS II for the full rural development plan period is €395 million. To facilitate the drawdown of EU funding, we have provided increased budget certainty to ensure that all farmers can avail of funding over the entire period of the scheme.

This scheme has proved popular with Irish farmers and over 11,700 applications have been submitted to date. Of these, 8,350, or more than 70%, have been approved. Approvals are issuing on an ongoing basis with approvals under the most recent tranche due to commence shortly. The figures are much lower when it comes to payment claims. It is open to approved applicants to submit an online payment claim as soon as they are in a position to do so. The timing of the submission of a payment claim before the approved deadline is entirely a matter for the individual farmer. To date, only 1,368 payment claims have been submitted. The Department has actively encouraged approved applicants to submit payment claims including by contacting approved applicants individually by text message. A small number of claims have not yet been paid as the IT functionality to reduce over-claims is currently being developed. To date, payments amounting to over €10 million have issued in 847 cases. All payment claims submitted are being examined on an ongoing basis. Where an issue arises with a payment claim, the applicant concerned is contacted directly by the Department to resolve it.

In relation to GLAS, the 2016 payments represented the first full-year payments under the scheme. To be very clear, only GLAS tranche 1 and tranche 2 participants are eligible for a payment in respect of 2016. At the end of December 2016, there were approximately 37,500 active tranche 1 and 2 participants in GLAS, of whom 27,400, or over 70%, received 85% of the 2016 payment in December. These payments were valued at over €97 million. GLAS has a range of over 30 actions available for selection by applicants under the different regulations. Given their complexity, many issues require review on a case-by-case basis. This work is ongoing in the remaining 2,700 cases. Where issues remain, my Department, or rather the Department of Agriculture, Food and the Marine - I would not like to assume I am getting a different job - has been in direct contact with participants or their advisors and is making every effort to resolve outstanding issues on a case-by-case basis. Additional information or outstanding documentation has been requested and is awaited in over 1,000 of these cases. In this regard, I urge participating farmers to return outstanding documentation, such as an interim commonage management plan or annual low-emissions slurry spreading declaration, so that the Department can moves things on.

The Minister for Agriculture, Food and the Marine, Deputy Michael Creed, wants these issues dealt with as do his officials. They will do all in their power to get people their payments as quickly as possible.

See this speech in context