More than 13,000 farmers are waiting on payments for last year under the Government’s ACRES scheme, with nearly 3,000 farmers still waiting on payments for 2023.
ACRES (Agri-Climate Rural Environment Scheme) is a Government-run agri-environment climate scheme that incentivises farmers to improve biodiversity on their lands.
It has a fund of €1.5 billion to help address biodiversity decline on farms.
According to the figures, released to Social Democrats’ Spokesperson for Climate, Environment & Biodiversity Jennifer Whitmore, the majority of farmers awaiting payments are based in the west and north of the country.
In response to a parliamentary question submitted by the Wicklow TD, Minister for Agriculture Martin Heydon said “almost all of those awaiting 2023 Scheme Year balancing payments have already received interim payments of either €4,000 or €5,000 in respect of their participation in the Scheme in 2023.”
He added that €119m in interim payments was paid to farmers in February and March last year.
Commenting on the number of delays, Ms Whitmore said: “It’s really welcome that so many farmers participated in the ACRES scheme to improve biodiversity on their lands, but if the scheme is going to continue to work for the environment and attract participants, it needs to pay farmers on time”.
“Many farmers would have had upfront costs to taking part in the scheme, and the fact that they are waiting over a year for payments is unacceptable. Many of the farmers participating in this scheme would be low income farmers – they can’t afford to wait around for that long while the Department try to get their payment systems in place”.
“I think its time now for the Minister to consider providing more staffing to the section to ensure a speedier allocation of payments and get through this backlog,” she added.
Reasons given by the Department of Agriculture for the delay in payments include changes of ownership and queries in relation to results-based payments.
The Department says cases are being resolved “on a regular basis and that further payment runs will be scheduled as cases pass the required payment validations”.
But it says “there will be a cohort of participants who cannot be paid because of outstanding issues which, in many cases, will have to be resolved by participants themselves”.
