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

I thank Deputy Conway-Walsh for raising a really important issue. I thank her for her good wishes at the start. This is a topic that is a real bugbear for farmers. If they are caught in this, the frustration is palpable. I will go through the detail on this in a minute. Before I do so, I want to respond to the Deputy's point about the frustration with the overall scheme, especially the frustrations of those who have got caught up in the complexity of the system. I understand the significant challenges for those who have not got that clarity or do not have the full payment in that space. If farmers have not had clear communication, that too is frustrating. Farmers are a resilient bunch. We can deal with anything as business people if we know what we are dealing with, if we know the timelines and if we know the impediments. That communication has got to be very clear. We must clearly communicate where the impediment is. In some instances, the impact is on the farmers' side. There are issues around probate or different elements around title. We will work with them on that. What I am looking to do at the minute is get a full detailed brief on exactly how many farmers are in that space and how many are in the space where the issue is on the Department's side. Where the impediment is on our side, if extra resources are needed I am very clear that they will be found and we will do everything we can - we will move might and main - to get this addressed as quickly as possible.

As the House is aware, ACRES is the flagship agri-environment and climate measure under Ireland's CAP strategic plan 2023-27, with €1.5 billion allocated to the scheme over its duration. The design of the scheme was informed by lessons learned through the green low-carbon agri-environment scheme, GLAS, the results-based environment-agri pilot project, REAP, and experience gained in locally led projects undertaken under the European innovation partnerships. ACRES has been a big change in our approach to agri-environmental schemes. It was and is a very ambitious scheme. It involves scaling up the results-based approach to national level. The level of payment is determined by the score assigned to the land. The higher the quality of the habitat, the higher the resulting payment. There are two approaches within the scheme. As the Deputy will be aware, an ACRES co-operation approach is available in eight zones which have high nature value and an ACRES general approach is available nationally outside those eight zones. In response to the high level of interest in participating in ACRES, it was decided that all valid applications for the scheme would be accepted, the outcome of which is that there are now 54,300 farmers in ACRES. The roll-out of the scheme from October 2022 and the commencement of contracts from January 2023 necessitated the development of an extensive new IT functionality and the upskilling of advisers in relation to the assessment and scoring of lands.

The scheme is also linked to several IT systems within my Department. For example, claims for payment under ACRES are submitted through BISS, while scores from the assessment of lands are submitted on the Department’s generic land management system. The development of these platforms had to coincide with the roll-out of the scheme. There is significant work involved in the verification of claims and in the calculation and issuing of payments to more than 54,000 participants. Most of these applications consist of a number of actions, or there may be a number of different habitats to be assessed, and multiple scorecards to be completed and submitted.

Payments have been finalised to 94% of ACRES tranche 1 participants in respect of their participation in the scheme in 2023, to a total value of €247.1 million. Balancing payments in respect of 2023 remain to be made to approximately 2,700 farmers. Certain issues such as transfer of contracts, alignment with BISS and issues with scorecards have contributed to delay in making some of those payments. Work is ongoing to resolve these issues and every effort is being made to process outstanding payments as quickly as possible.

It is important to point out that interim payments of €4,000 and €5,000, amounting to almost €120 million, were paid in February and March 2024 to 25,000 ACRES participants who had not at that point received an advance payment for their participation in 2023. I can touch on this further in my supplementary response.

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