Charlie McConalogue (Donegal, Fianna Fail) | Oireachtas source

I thank Deputy Kenny very much. I wish him well and congratulate him on being appointed as Opposition spokesperson on agriculture, food and the marine. I look forward to working with him. We both worked on the same side of the House previously. He has extensive experience and an understanding of the sector. I acknowledge the significant contribution made by Deputy Kerrane as Opposition spokesperson during her time. I wish her well also in her new spokesperson role.

I thank Deputy Kenny for his question on ACRES. It is appropriate that this is the first question we are dealing with today because it is such an important scheme. It is one that has seen some challenges in the course of the past year with the roll-out of the first year of the scheme. I am very determined to make sure that these challenges are addressed and not repeated as we go into the second year of the scheme.

Last year was the first year of the new Common Agricultural Policy, CAP. All of the schemes were new – the suckler scheme, the sheep scheme, ACRES, the organic scheme, the targeted agricultural modernisation scheme, TAMS, etc. By and large, the introduction of all of the schemes worked pretty well, or as well as we could have hoped. The payment dates that were set last year were largely adhered to. The one challenge has been ACRES. In many ways, it is not a surprise that it would be because it is the most administratively complex one. It is also the scheme that is most impacted by the fact that the CAP at European level had to adjust to a results-based approach, as opposed to the previous compliance approach. There have been challenges with the payments and there has also been disappointment with some of the scoring.

My objective is to make sure the scheme works well for everyone. This is the reason I made sure that everyone who applied in the first and second tranches was accepted. It is also the reason I intervened when there were delays with payments . I did so to ensure that everybody who had not received their advance payment by the end of last year got an interim payment of either €4,000 or €5,000 at the start of this year instead. This is the first time that ever happened. We are now working our way through the balancing payments. Some 82% got their balancing payment as of the end of last month.

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