Victor Boyhan (Independent)
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I thank the Cathaoirleach for selecting this important Commencement matter. I know the Minister, Deputy McConalogue, is in Brussels to discuss fisheries policy and is held there. I am sorry he cannot be here. The Minister of State is not from the Department of agriculture but I thank him for coming to the House to take this matter on behalf of the Department.

The matter I raise relates to correspondence that many Members will have received, certainly members of the Joint Committee on Agriculture, Food and the Marine, from Ms Elaine Farrell, who is the Oireachtas representative of the Irish Farmers Association. I thank Ms Farrell for her diligent work in communicating with the Oireachtas, its Members and the committee on all matters to do with agriculture that are relevant to the IFA. I thank the IFA for its continuous advocacy work on behalf of its members, which is powerful and important, as is every representative body in the area of agriculture. They are listened to and receive an audience here. People are committed to agriculture. It is a very important industry in Ireland.

The crux of the matter relates to the agri-climate rural environment scheme, ACRES, the Government's flagship environmental scheme, with which the Minister of State will be very familiar.Its purpose is to compensate, encourage and financially support farmers with a wide range of environmental initiatives on their farms. I think it is a good initiative. It is one that the Minister of State's party very much agrees with and is behind. There was a lot of talk about the role farmers can play in supporting the environment. We know that farmers are the custodians of our land. We also know that it is important that we have a good land policy. We further know the importance of the quality of our water and soil and the environmental and sustainability challenges. I salute the Government for coming up with this new scheme, ACRES. It is clear that there must be a buy-in. It is an indication of the Government's support and commitment that some money is given in advance to farmers who carry out and fulfil the criteria of ACRES. The criteria for the scheme are strict. It is all measurable. That is important too.

The gist of the IFA's argument is that more than 46,000 people applied for ACRES. It is a Government flagship scheme. I do not think anyone disputes that but the problem is the expectation that a substantial number of farmers would receive their payments. I understand that the Department announced that 27,800, or 60% of the people who applied for the scheme, will not receive their payments until February 2024. That is the kernel of it. It is very unsatisfactory. Surely somebody knew there may potentially have been an issue. Farmers deserve to be paid. The representative body, the IFA, has now made a case. At the end of the day, farmers have incurred expenses, including for consultancy, and they have done practical things. They have spent money. If the Government wants to bring the farming community with it, as genuine stakeholders, it must fulfil its side of the bargain. The Government must commit to what was set out in the ground rules. It cannot change the ground rules in terms of business and dialogue.

What the IFA is asking is that the Minister would intervene. I ask the Minister of State to use his offices to talk to the Minister and to deliver some part of the ACRES payment prior to Christmas. That is the ask. Farmers want this payment. They are entitled to it. They signed up in good faith to engage in this system. I hope the Minister of State will be able to shed some light, so that when I leave here with the bit of paper he is going to read out, I can email it to the IFA and to farm organisations and tell them that the Minister is looking favourably in his response at the issue we have raised today with the Minister on behalf of the IFA.

Malcolm Noonan (Carlow-Kilkenny, Green Party)
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Gabhaim buíochas leis an Seanadóir as an gceist seo. I thank Senator Boyhan for raising this matter which I am taking on behalf of the Minister for agriculture, Deputy McConalogue.

Just this morning we announced a new environment scheme for breeding waders, €25 million from my Department via the National Parks and Wildlife Service and €5 million from the Department of agriculture. That is hugely important. As Senator Boyhan said, farmers and landowners want to participate in these schemes and that is why they have been hugely popular and there is such a big uptake on them. That is a great testament to the success of the schemes.

In line with the commitment in the programme for Government, a flagship environmental scheme, namely, ACRES, was launched last year. The scheme has funding of more than €1.5 billion over its five-year lifetime, to facilitate the participation of 50,000 farmers. As I indicated, there was exceptional demand for entry into the scheme, which demonstrates the interest of farmers to take actions to address climate, biodiversity, environmental and water quality issues.

The financial allocation in Ireland's Common Agricultural Policy, CAP, strategic plan, CSP, for ACRES facilitates the participation of 50,000 farmers, with intake phased over two tranches. While it had initially been planned to accept 30,000 under the first tranche, it was decided, in view of the level of interest, to accept all valid applications into the scheme which, in turn, means that some 4,000 will be taken into the second tranche.

The decision to accept all 46,000 applicants has put significant pressure on the ability to pay all participants in 2023. Officials have been working to expedite payments, but with the unprecedented numbers, it has not been possible to get all ACRES applicants paid by the year end. Payments will commence on 18 December with two thirds of all ACRES general participants in the final stages of being processed for payment in the initial payment run. Due to the additional complexity associated with the co-operation project, CP, stream, payments for participants in this stream are being progressed and will begin to issue in February 2024. Everything is being done to pay, as soon as possible, all ACRES applicants who clear prepayment checks.As part of budget 2024, the Government has committed €200 million to ACRES, which is a substantial increase on the 2023 budget. This Government wants to reward farmers for environmental ambition and pay them in accordance with the environmental results achieved. This is more challenging in the co-operation project areas. That is why additional non-productive investments and landscape actions are available as mechanisms for farmers to improve their lands, increase their scores and hence increase their payments. It is a results-based payment scheme.

The structure of ACRES is at the forefront of agri-environmental schemes throughout Europe. The achievements we have made to date in scaling a results-based approach up to a national level, building on the success of the European innovation partnership, EIP, initiative, and which farmers have found to be extremely effective and rewarding, must be acknowledged. The qualitative aspects of the scheme and the focus on the right action in the right measure in the right place demonstrates the way in which agri-environment schemes have evolved over the years, with a more holistic approach being taken by looking at the landscape as a whole and designing an ambitious scheme and actions that can contribute to addressing a range of challenges. Many of these were based on the Burren Life programme which was hugely successful. A significant achievement of ACRES to date is that now 25% of all land under agricultural management is scored. This output will provide a valuable resource across Government, demonstrating the multiple objectives and co-benefits of the scheme. We as a Government acknowledge the intensive and focused effort from all concerned, first and most importantly, from farmers but also their advisers, co-operation project teams and the Department officials who are working together on this first year of this new scheme. We further acknowledge that farmers were expecting payment before the end of the year and we note that the collective decision and hard work to include all eligible applicants into tranche 1 of ACRES has put significant pressure on delivering all payments by year end. Every effort is being made to maximise the number of applicants who will be paid in the period before Christmas and every effort will also be made to ensure that payments to co-operation project participants are processed as quickly as possible in early 2024.

Victor Boyhan (Independent)
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I thank the Minister of State. He can share the frustration. It is about trust. There is a very fragile relationship between the Department, the Government and agriculture. Agriculture has become very divided. Here we have a really positive scheme and yet trust is now broken. The IFA contacted us last Friday expressing concern. Where is the lead-in time for this? Why was this not flagged four or five weeks ago? Why were the measures not put in place? I accept it is not the responsibility of the Minister of State; it is not even his Department. However, he, more than anyone, is committed to seeing this work. We now have a really positive scheme and we are falling down at the fence when it comes to the delivery end. It is an honour. People went into and incurred expenses and we need to honour our commitments to farmers who signed up to this scheme. The bottom line is 46,000 people are involved. They are not all involved in the lack of payment but it is very disappointing. At the end of the day, people have to put food on their table. They have to pay their bills. They have to honour their debts. I believe the Government needs to honour its concern. I ask one thing. Will the Minister of State take this away from here to the Minister? Will the Minister update the joint committee on agriculture when we meet again this week? Will he provide an update on how this is evolving and how we are going to get a solution?

Malcolm Noonan (Carlow-Kilkenny, Green Party)
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Absolutely Senator, I can bring that back to the Minister, Deputy McConalogue. As the Senator can appreciate, the Department took in all applicants, given that there was such an uptake and such demand for the scheme, which is fantastic. It is brilliant that it has happened but it has created significant additional pressure, not to mention in particular on the co-operation project side of it. Every effort is being made to try to address it. Again I will flag that our new breeding waders EIP scheme opened today people. People can go to the Department of agriculture website. It is a €25 million scheme. The open calls begin from today until 22 January 2024. Again, we would love farmers to be involved in a very positive scheme. These are brilliant schemes and farmers want to be involved in them. The last thing we want is for them to be deterred from doing that. We want to resolve this as soon as we can.