Robert O'Donoghue (Dublin Fingal West, Labour)
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158. To ask the Minister for Agriculture, Food and the Marine given the ongoing delay in updating the TAMS reference costs, which has been flagged by an organisation (details supplied) as creating uncertainty and delaying investment in essential farm infrastructure, to provide a definitive timeline for the completion of this review; the measures his Department will take to ensure that grant aid reflects actual material costs, such as concrete and steel, to support farmers in making necessary improvements, particularly in areas related to water quality and slurry storage; and the discrepancies in the TAMS dairy equipment scheme’s terms and conditions regarding grant aid for multiple robotic milking machines; and if he will make a statement on the matter. [13826/25]

Martin Heydon (Kildare South, Fine Gael)
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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. The reference costs are updated periodically to ensure that they reflect actual/market costs for the construction of farm buildings and facilities, and farm equipment. To achieve this objective, the review of the reference costs is based on a comparison with receipted costs, and in order for this comparison to be effective, an adequate number of receipted claims is required.

My Department is currently reviewing these reference costs in TAMS 3, with a publication of the revised costs due this year.

The terms and conditions of the TAMS 3 Dairy Equipment Scheme reflect the fact that a farmer is allowed grant aid for a robotic milking machine on the holding even if they received grant aid for a robotic milking machine in the earlier TAMS II.