Charlie McConalogue (Donegal, Fianna Fail)
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The Targeted Agriculture Modernisation Scheme (TAMS 3) provides grants to farmers to build and/or improve a specified range of farm buildings and equipment on their holdings. There is an indicative budget of €370 million available for the period 2022-2027, and all investments must be linked to Climate, Environment or Animal Welfare.

There is currently a range of Agtech equipment already included in the TAMS 3 schemes. This includes items such as GPS machinery control, yield monitoring, health and fertility monitoring systems, grass growth monitoring systems, robotic slurry scrapers and automatic calf feeders.

I will ensure that the list of investment items will continue to be reviewed on a regular basis. The inclusion of further investment categories will, of course, be dependent on the availability of the required funding under the TAMS 3 schemes.

Peter Burke (Longford-Westmeath, Fine Gael)
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1225. To ask the Minister for Agriculture, Food and the Marine if he will revise the criteria for the current ACRES scheme. [57016/23]

Charlie McConalogue (Donegal, Fianna Fail)
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As the Deputy may be aware, intake into the Agri-Climate Rural Environment Scheme (ACRES) is on a phased basis, in two tranches. The Government has committed €1.5 billion to ACRES over the duration of the scheme to facilitate the participation of 50,000 farmers. The funding provided in Budget 2024 facilitates the acceptance of some 4,000 applicants under Tranche 2 into ACRES to bring the overall numbers in the Scheme up to that level, which is also in line with Ireland’s CAP Strategic Plan 2023-2027.

The deadline for submission of applications for Tranche 2 of ACRES was 13th December 2023. The next step in the process is the validation of those applications against the eligibility criteria as stated in the Terms and Conditions for Tranche 2 of ACRES. As the number of applications exceeds the number of spaces remaining in the Scheme, a ranking and selection process will be undertaken.

The selection criteria and marking system for Tranche 2 are explained in the Terms and Conditions for Tranche 2 of ACRES, which are available on my Department’s website. The guiding principle in framing those criteria is to maximise the contribution that ACRES can make to meeting a range of environmental, climate and biodiversity objectives and challenges, and I am satisfied that the assignment of marks is appropriate for that purpose.