Irish Cattle and Sheep Farmers’ Association (ICSA) rural development chair Edmond Phelan has said that ongoing delays under the Agri-Climate Rural Environment Scheme (ACRES) is "undermining" confidence in all schemes.
According to the latest figures, over 12,000 farmers have yet to receive their 2024 ACRES payments, while 2,764 are still awaiting their balancing payments from 2023.
There are several reasons for the delay in making payments to the remaining participants, according to the Department for Agriculture, Food and the Marine (DAFM).
The main issues include contract and ownership or partnership cases, Basic Income Support for Sustainability Scheme (BISS) errors, and alignment of ACRES contract details with the latest BISS information.
There are also over 600 scorecard related issues, including incorrect scores and scorecards not submitted.
Minister for Agriculture, Food and the Marine Martin Heydon noted that every case must clear all validations before payment can issue to a farmer.
Phelan said the situation is "completely unacceptable", and he is calling on Minister Heydon to make resolving this matter his “absolute priority” to restore confidence in the scheme.
"Payment delays wouldn’t wash in any other industry, yet farmers are expected to just accept them. We heard from Minister Heydon at the ICSA AGM and annual conference last week that it will be months before all the issues are resolved.
"This is simply not acceptable. The department of agriculture continues to cite IT issues as the primary cause of the delays, but this excuse is wearing thin. If the system isn’t working, they need to get the chequebook out and pay manually," Phelan said.
Phelan said that farmers have spent "significant sums" of money fulfilling their obligations under the scheme, and that they should not have to wait "indefinitely" to be paid.