Charlie McConalogue (Donegal, Fianna Fail) | Oireachtas source

I thank Deputy Kerrane. Payments to farmers are particularly important. I place a big emphasis on them in the context of the role played by the Department of Agriculture, Food and the Marine. That is why last year, which was the first year of the new Common Agricultural Policy, CAP, we put a massive effort into making sure that we would set dates at the start of the year that could be delivered upon. In the context of the adjusted dates we used last year, for example, for the pillar 1 schemes, we succeeded in delivering on those dates and in paying 90% of farmers on the dates we set. This rate is very high by any standards in the first year of a new CAP.

The same has been the case for the vast majority of other schemes. One significant exemption has been ACRES, which has proved particularly challenging. We managed to pay between 17,000 to 18,000 of those farmers in the general stream, back in December. However, the Department and the team have been working hard to try to ensure all are paid. The target was to pay both the co-operation project scheme and general scheme in that month. That was not possible. A new date of February was set in the hope that everything would be in place to allow payments to be made, but this has proved complicated. The Department was not in a position to meet the February date. I intervened and directed that an interim payment be made. I did so because I had made a commitment to farmers. I know how important this payment is to farmers. ACRES is a significant scheme, with 50% extra funding in it compared with the previous green low-carbon agri-environment, GLAS, scheme. It is important to many farmers who had hoped to have that before Christmas.

I have directed that an interim payment of €4,000 be made to every farmer in the general stream who has not yet been paid and €5,000 to every farmer in the co-operation project stream. Farmers in the latter stream have not been paid yet. Overall, this means that 26,000 farmers will now get either €4,000 or €5,000. Every farmer who participated in ACRES will receive that payment if they have not been paid already. The Department is on track to have this money paid into farmers' accounts by the end of the month. This will mean that it will land in farmers' accounts in the days thereafter. It will be issued by the end of the month in accordance with the direction I have givens. The Department is working hard to resolve the remaining issues and to put in place the structures to make sure that the balancing payments can be paid by June.

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