Johnny Mythen (Wexford, Sinn Fein)
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768. To ask the Minister for Agriculture, Food and the Marine when delayed ACRES payments due to over 677 County Wexford farmers will be paid out; and if he will make a statement on the matter. [16931/25]

Martin Heydon (Kildare South, Fine Gael)
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I can confirm that a total of 1,103 farmers with holdings in County Wexford are currently active participants in the Agri-Climate Rural Environment Scheme (ACRES). Of this total, 670 farmers are currently awaiting their 2024 scheme year advance payments, of which 64 are also awaiting finalisation of 2023 payments.

A total of just under €248 million has been paid to 43,032 participants, or 96% of all ACRES participants, in respect of their participation in the Scheme in 2023.

1,863 farmers have yet to receive their final payments for 2023. Of these, 1,569 have already received an interim payment of either €4,000 or €5,000. In many instances, this will cover the entire payment due.

Every effort is being made to finalise these payments as quickly as possible, including through a dedicated team that is resolving outstanding issues in respect of farmers’ participation in the Scheme in 2023. Indeed, a payment run issued last week to 401 of these participants, which demonstrates that progress continues to be made in issuing payments.

As regards 2024 payments, I can confirm that advance payments totalling €196.6 million have now also been paid to 45,702 farmers in respect of their participation in ACRES in 2024. This number represents 84% of all ACRES participants. Advance payments in respect of scheme participation in 2024 have still to be made to 8,521 farmers, which represents 16% of ACRES participants across the two tranches.

Certain issues such as transfers of contracts, late or non-submission of scorecards, and alignment of ACRES information with data held by the Department on other IT systems, have contributed to the delay in the making of those payments.

My Department is actively resolving the remaining issues through, for example, the development of the required IT functionality, the re-allocation of resources and the investigation of issues associated with specific contracts. It is also important to note that not all outstanding payments are caused by delays within my Department, as in some cases, action is required by the participant to progress the payment claim. Pay runs are taking place every 10 days in order to ensure that these payments are issued in a timely manner as cases pass the required validations.

My Department will continue to issue regular online updates over the coming period on the progress being made, with the expectation of having the vast majority of payments in respect of farmers’ participation in ACRES in 2023 and 2024 made by the end of June.