Charlie McConalogue (Donegal, Fianna Fail)
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215. To ask the Minister for Agriculture, Food and the Marine the budget allocation for TAMS II in 2017; and the expenditure realised to date. [47543/17]

Michael Creed (Cork North West, Fine Gael)
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The budget allocation for TAMS II in 2017 is €50m.

To date the expenditure in 2017 amounts to €23.8m.  Of the 11,619 approvals that have issued payment claims have been received from 23% of the farmers concerned. This equates to 2,591 payment claims of which 1,922 applicants have been paid to date.  Payments and approvals are continuing on an ongoing basis.

A further 775 applicants have advised the Department through the submission of a special notification known as a Card A that they have commenced major building works, in these cases a claim for payment has not yet been submitted. The TAMS II Scheme has in excess of 350 individual investment opportunities and applicants can also avail of investments that do not require the pre notification Card A. For example, in the case of equipment.  

All farmers are being actively encouraged to act on their approvals. There is a budget in place of €395m for the duration of the Rural Development Programme 2014-2020.