Charlie McConalogue (Donegal, Fianna Fail)
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I was delighted to announce that I have increased the allocation for ACRES by €40m bringing the total scheme allocation to €200 million – this is a substantial increase on the 2023 budget of €160 million. The provision of additional funding will allow us to deliver on the Government’s commitment to have 50,000 farmers participating in ACRES, our flagship environmental programme under Ireland’s 2023-2027 CAP Plan. There was unprecedented demand for places in Tranche 1 and having ensured all 46,000 farmers could participate in that Tranche, I am delighted to now open Tranche 2 to a further 4,000 farmers. I am now encouraging all farmers who are interested in applying to check on agfood.ie to see whether they are eligible to apply for ACRES General or ACRES Co-operation (CP).

As the Deputy may be aware, and as must be the case with Schemes including ACRES, my Department will, in the event of oversubscription, apply a ranking and selection process based on the extent of the environmental benefit to be delivered.

No doubt the Deputy will be familiar with the EU Birds Directive (Council Directive 2009/147/EC on the Conservation of Wild Birds). It provides for the classification of Special Protection Areas (SPAs) across all Member States to protect birds at their breeding, moulting and wintering areas as well as staging posts along their migration routes. The Directive instructs all Member States, including Ireland, to classify the most suitable sites as Special Protection Areas for regularly occurring migratory species and for those species listed on Annex I to the Directive. Eight special protection areas have been classified for the conservation of Hen Harrier in Ireland.

I have put in place the following conditions for incoming applications in Tranche 2 so to comply with the Birds Directive.

In Tranche 2, ACRES General applicants can be considered for Tier 1 priority access to the scheme if they have at least 0.5 Hectares of land within the Natura (Special Areas of Conservation/Special Protection Areas) mapped area in 2022 and select one of the appropriate actions intersecting the Natura mapped area. The National Parks & Wildlife Service (NPWS) determine the designation of Special Areas of Conservation (SAC), Special Protection Areas (SPA) and Natural Heritage Areas (NHA).

For those falling within the ACRES CP stream there is no tiered entry, however, ranking and selection (RASS) may apply, if the Scheme is oversubscribed. Those applicants that have participated in and completed a European Innovation Partnership (EIP) project, such as the Hen Harrier Project, will receive points in the RASS process.