Charlie McConalogue (Donegal, Fianna Fail)
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In 2023 under the CAP Strategic Plan (CSP), my Department introduced a wide range of new schemes to assist Irish farmers, including the Basic Income Support for Sustainability (BISS), the Complementary Redistributive Income Support for Sustainability (CRISS), ECO scheme and ACRES. These schemes were designed to directly support farm incomes and also to reward farmers for undertaking actions that were of benefit to the climate and the environment. These schemes were also complimented by a range of national schemes that were designed to further help farmers to meet the challenges facing Irish Agriculture.

The introduction of the such a range of new schemes in 2023 was a significant administrative challenge for officials in the Department, farm advisors and farmers. The range of schemes and the data required to underpin the various payments required that significant develop of IT systems had to be carried out. Much of this work required bespoke development of systems and engagement with the EU Commission to ensure that the systems were capable of managing the applications, administrative checks and payments.

To date under the 2023 schemes nearly €2 billion has been paid out to Irish farmers. Schemes such as the Basic Income Support for Sustainability (BISS) have in excess of 99% of eligible applicants paid at this point. While no doubt there have been challenges in ensuring payments issue in a timely manner, my Department has consistently been one of the earliest Member States to make payments.

One of the benefits of the multi-annual nature of the CSP is that while 2023 saw a large amount of change 2024 will, from a scheme perspective, be relatively stable with development work carried out in 2023 being available for use again in 2024. It is therefore expected that 2024 will be easier on all parties.

Online applications for the BISS/CRISS/ECO & ANC Schemes opened as scheduled on 20th February 2024. Scheduled downtime occurred in 2024 to facilitate the introduction of additional functionality for the ECO Scheme and to facilitate the introduction of functionality for the Multi Species Sward Measure (MSSM) and Red Clover Silage Measure (RCSM) Schemes. My Department allocated additional IT resources to complete the development. The online application was initially opened with additional features added throughout the application period.

The Departments online applications are developed in line with internationally accepted best practices and have a rigorous testing programme. Whilst it is not possible for the Department to give guarantees that IT issues will not be experienced in the future, the Department can confirm that applications are continuously monitored in the application period, and that any issues that may arise will be dealt with in a timely and efficient manner.

Charlie McConalogue (Donegal, Fianna Fail)
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ACRES General payments commenced on December 15^th 2023, and approximately 19,719 farmers have been paid a total of €88.356 million to date.

Due to the additional complexity associated with payments to Co-operation Project (CP) participants, it was agreed to make an interim payment to all the remaining applicants who had not received an ACRES payment. The first interim payment run of €4,000 for ACRES General participants and €5,000 for ACRES CP participants was paid on the February 28th 2024, and came to a total of €113,617,000. A second run totalling €5,923,000 was processed last week and is arriving in bank accounts this week.

Including the payments processed last week, 44,780 participants will have received ACRES payments totalling €207.8 million.

The Department is aware of a small number of cases that were issued a payment in error due to an administrative error. This has now been rectified.

My Department is continuing its work to expedite ACRES payments for issue in June.