Martin Heydon (Kildare South, Fine Gael) | Oireachtas source

The Department of agriculture, the Minister, Deputy McConalogue, and I are working hard to make sure farmers across the board are supported and will receive their payments in due course.

In the first year as part of the new Common Agricultural Policy, we have seen €1.2 billion being paid out under that to 113,000 farmers. There was big pressure on the agri-climate rural environment scheme, ACRES, with only 30,000 places where 46,000 people applied. We facilitated those 46,000 farmers who will all be able to join. That put significant pressure in the first year of the new scheme and on the all new area monitoring computer systems. There has been pressure and not all farmers have been able to receive the ACRES payment as soon as we would have liked but there will be payments made next week to a significant cohort of ACRES farmers and they are all due to be communicated with in due course. The remainder will be paid as soon as possible early into the new year.

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