The Department of Agriculture, Food and the Marine (DAFM) has said that a review of the Agri-Climate Rural Environment Scheme (ACRES) is ongoing.

In October, it was announced that a review of the flagship agri-environmental scheme would be undertaken by the department.

The €1.5 billion scheme is a major part of Ireland’s Common Agricultural Policy (CAP) Strategic Plan.

However, ACRES has been the subject of repeated criticism from farm organisations due to delays with payments to farmers.

"The scope of the Review is to review the experience with the scheme and to identify ways of advancing the scheme to improve.

"Meetings have been held with farming bodies, advisory bodies and the ACRES Co-operation (CP) Project Teams as part of the review.

"A report on the review, when completed, will be submitted to the Minister for his consideration," a DAFM spokesperson told Agriland.

However, no timeframe for the completion of the review was given by the department.

In response to a recent parliamentary question, Minister for Agriculture, Food and the Marine Martin Heydon confirmed that 2,764 farmers are still awaiting 2023 ACRES balancing payments.

He noted that almost all of those awaiting 2023 balancing payments have already received interim payments of either €4,000 or €5,000 in respect of their participation in the scheme in 2023.

A total of €119 million in such interim payments was paid to farmers in February and March of 2024.

Minister Heydon also told Social Democrats TD Jennifer Whitmore that some 13,051 farmers are awaiting 2024 scheme year payments.

He added that there are a number of possible reasons why payments have not yet issued, including:

Changes of ownership/transfers of contracts due to a variety of circumstances;
Queried or unsubmitted scorecards in respect of results-based payments;
Outstanding queries on the relevant Basic Income Support for Sustainability (BISS) Scheme applications;
Reconciliation of mapping-related discrepancies, for example between BISS and ACRES applications, and between scorecard and DAFM mapping data.

The minister said that cases are being resolved on a regular basis and further payment runs will be scheduled as cases pass the required payment validations.

"However, and as is the case with all schemes, 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," he said.