Anne Rabbitte (Galway East, Fianna Fail) | Oireachtas source

I thank Senator Kyne for his opening contribution. I am taking this Commencement matter on behalf of the Minister, Deputy McConalogue, who wishes to thank the Senator for raising this important issue. It gives me an opportunity to update our colleagues in Seanad Éireann on the agri-climate rural environment scheme, known locally as ACRES.

As the Senator correctly said, ACRES is the flagship agri-environment scheme provided under Ireland’s CAP Strategic Plan 2023-2027, with an increased environmental ambition, as required under the new Common Agricultural Policy. There are a number of new and innovative elements, such as the scaling up of results-based actions from the locally led approach under the European Innovation Partnerships to a national results-based scheme. There was significant interest from farmers in the scheme, and the Minister, Deputy McConalogue, responded to that interest by ensuring that all valid applications were accepted. The result is that we now have just under 55,000 active participants in the scheme.

The ambitious and complex nature of ACRES, with the availability of two approaches and the incorporation of results-based payments, has created opportunities for farmers to greatly improve environmental outcomes. It has also created challenges in the first year of implementation of the scheme. The Minister has endeavoured to address those challenges as they arose. While advance payments had issued to almost 20,000 participants by mid-February 2024, when it became evident that there would be delays in making further payments, the Minister arranged for the issue of interim payments to all those affected. The objective behind this unprecedented move by the Minister was to alleviate financial difficulties being experienced at all times. The outcome of this was that by the middle of March of this year, virtually all ACRES tranche 1 participants had received an advance payment or flat-rate interim payment of either €4,000 or €5,000. These interim payments represented the majority of, or in some cases exceeded, the total ACRES payments due for the year.

Participants were also advised that if their final overall ACRES payment in respect of 2024 was calculated to be greater than the value of the interim payment, the balance would issue to them. They were also advised that if the value of the interim payment was higher than the final ACRES payment, the overpayment would be recouped by the Department. Balancing payments commenced in mid-June and to date, 40,973 participants have had their claims fully processed for the 2023 scheme year, with the processing of payments for the remaining contracts continuing.

In terms of overpayments or what the Senator rightly called miscalculating, the current position is that 8,673 participants are in an overpayment situation. This represents 40% of all of those participants who received an interim payment and whose balancing payments have been fully processed. Letters have issued to those in an overpayment situation. The Minister has ensured, in the interests of providing as much flexibility as possible, that a range of options is available to the affected participants to facilitate making the repayment in a way that best suits them, including deferring their next ACRES payment.