Charlie McConalogue (Donegal, Fianna Fail)
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The person named submitted applications to the 2023 Complementary Income Support for Young Farmers scheme and the young farmer category of the 2023 National Reserve as the young farmer in a Registered Farm Partnership.

The application to the 2023 National Reserve was successful, and approval and payment based on the successful application issued in mid-December 2023. Processing of the 2023 Complementary Income Support for Young Farmers scheme application is ongoing as there are some remaining eligibility and verification checks to be carried out.

A member of staff of my Department will be in direct contact with the person named where there is further information required regarding the application.

Brendan Griffin (Kerry, Fine Gael)
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439. To ask the Minister for Agriculture, Food and the Marine when an organic payment will issue to a person (details supplied) in County Kerry; and if he will make a statement on the matter. [3844/24]

Charlie McConalogue (Donegal, Fianna Fail)
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Advance payments to organic farmers commenced on 7^thDecember 2023. To date, approximately 90% of Organic Farming Scheme participants have received advance payments. DAFM is working to finalise payments for the remaining 10% of participants. The majority of these payments, including for this case, will issue within the next 8 weeks.

Niall Collins (Limerick County, Fianna Fail)
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440. To ask the Minister for Agriculture, Food and the Marine further to Parliamentary Question No. 1252 of 17 January 2024, if he could consider the request therein and restated in correspondence (details supplied); and if he will make a statement on the matter. [3888/24]

Charlie McConalogue (Donegal, Fianna Fail)
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I note that, further to my previous response, the question now being asked is whether further funding will be made available to allow all applicants to Tranche 2 to be accepted into ACRES.

As previously stated, €1.5 billion has been committed over the lifetime of the Scheme. A balance must be considered in allocating this funding, between accepting the appropriate number of applicants and ensuring the appropriate compensation is available for the applicants who carry out the measures as required under the Scheme. An independently verified costing exercise was carried out which calculated the payment levels. Using these levels of payment, it was determined that the maximum number of applicants that could be accepted into the scheme was 50,000.

I encouraged all interested farmers to apply for Tranche 1 and, following discussions with relevant stakeholders, I was able to announce that all 46,000 eligible applicants would be accepted.

This means that the budget will allow for in the region of 4,000 places to be taken up in Tranche 2. The application window has now closed, and eligibility checks will be carried out on the applications received. Following this, all eligible applications will be ranked and selected to determine which are successful. All applicants will be notified of their outcome in writing. There are currently no plans to increase the total number of contracts approved under ACRES Tranche 2 beyond what has already been stated.

Michael Healy-Rae (Kerry, Independent)
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441. To ask the Minister for Agriculture, Food and the Marine the status of a farm payment appeal by a person (details supplied); and if he will make a statement on the matter. [3891/24]

Charlie McConalogue (Donegal, Fianna Fail)
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The Suckler Carbon Efficiency Programme (SCEP) aims to provide support to beef farmers to improve the environmental sustainability of the national beef herd. The programme aims to build on the gains delivered in recent years through the Beef Data and Genomics Programme (BDGP) and the Beef Environmental Efficiency Programme (BEEP) by improving the genetic merit of the Irish suckler herd.

As stated under section 11 ‘Payments under the Programme’ of the Terms and Conditions of SCEP, in order to avail of the full payment, an applicant must have at least enough determined eligible forage hectares under their BISS application each year to match their Maximum Payable Area (MPA). If the determined eligible forage area is less than the MPA but 80% or above, the payment will be based on this eligible forage area.

If the determined eligible forage hectares in any year is less than 80% of the maximum payable area selected by SCEP participants, the participant can continue participation in SCEP, but will not be paid for the year that the determined eligible forage hectares is less than 80% of the MPA.

A SCEP application was received on behalf of the person named with a programme reference number and a 2023 yearly reference number of 37 with an MPA of 24.67 declared on the application. As the person named did not have enough determined eligible forage hectares on their BISS application to meet the minimum amount required to be eligible for payment, no payment is due under SCEP in respect of scheme year 1 of the programme.

A request for review was received on behalf of the person named on 23 January 2024, a letter issued to the person named on 24 January 2024 informing him of the outcome and of the next steps he can take if he so wishes.

Charlie McConalogue (Donegal, Fianna Fail)
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The person named was approved into Tranche 1 of the Agri-Climate Rural Environment Scheme (ACRES), with a contract commencement date of 1 January 2023.

ACRES payments commenced on December 15th for ACRES General cases that had, at that point, cleared the scheme payment validations. Due to the unprecedented number of applications approved under Tranche 1, it was not possible to get all participants paid by the 2023 year-end.

As is the case with all EU co-funded schemes, all ACRES applications must pass regulatory controls and validations before payment can issue.

Cases not paid in the December pay run are currently being validated against scheme requirements, and my Department continues to work to expedite such payments. The case in question is one of a batch of outstanding cases still being processed, and payment will be made once all payment validations are cleared.

Claire Kerrane (Roscommon-Galway, Sinn Fein)
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443. To ask the Minister for Agriculture, Food and the Marine if he has engaged with the Minister for Finance regarding concerns from farmers about taxation following receipt of two ACRES payments in 2024; and if he will make a statement on the matter. [3967/24]

Charlie McConalogue (Donegal, Fianna Fail)
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The Deputy will be aware that taxation policy is primarily the responsibility of my colleague the Minister for Finance and that the Office of the Revenue Commissioners has responsibility for the operation of the taxation system.

However, my Department does engage on taxation issues relating to the agri-food sector with a view to supporting Government policy in this regard.

In this context, there is a system for income averaging for farmers and further information can be found at www.revenue.ie. This is an important agri-taxation measure and it assists in addressing income volatility in allowing farmers to pay tax based on the average of five years’ farming profits and losses.