Brendan Smith (Cavan-Monaghan, Fianna Fail) | Oireachtas source

I also want to raise the delay in payments for some participants in ACRES. As we know, it is a very important environmental scheme and helps to compensate farmers for costs incurred in carrying out additional environmental measures. Farmers in the scheme have carried out those tasks and considerable costs have been incurred. The importance of the scheme is illustrated very clearly, with 46,600 participants. The farmers understood the payments would be made at the end of November. I understand a sizeable cohort of those participants have been told they may not receive payments until February. There has been a history of advance payments for particular schemes over the years in the Department. I would like the Minister, Deputy McConalogue, and the Minister of State, Deputy Heydon, to give urgent consideration to the introduction of an advanced payment of a sizeable proportion of, say, 80% to 85%. If any issues then arose in finalising the applications, the balancing payment could offset any non-compliance issue, etc. This is something that needs urgent attention. Farmers were depending on these payments to meet ongoing commitments on their farms.

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