Minister for Agriculture, Food and the Marine Charlie McConalogue has been asked to allow farmers who received an overpayment under the Agri-Climate Rural Environment Scheme (ACRES) to repay the money through the same scheme next year.

This is in contrast to the current expectation that affected farmers would see these overpayments clawed back in the next scheduled payment, which is set to be the Areas of Natural Constraint (ANC) Scheme payment for the large majority of those farmers.

In recent weeks farm organisations have raised concerns over this potential reduction in non-ACRES payments in cases where farmers who received too much money on their ACRES interim payment.

The once-off interim payment was made earlier this year due to delays in processing the expected payments that farmers should have received, a delay understood to be caused by issues with the Department of Agriculture, Food and the Marine's IT systems, compounded with a new scheme design compared to previous agri-environmental schemes.

However, as the processing of payments got underway and continued, it became apparent that some farmers received an interim payment higher than what they would have got if they had received the scheduled ACRES payment on time.

Farm organisations recently met with department officials to discuss the possibility of alternative arrangements for those farmers who will need to repay this overpayment.

The Irish Creamery Milk Suppliers' Association (ICMSA) called on the minister to look again at the repayment options.

Speaking today (Monday, July 15), ICMSA deputy president Eamon Carroll said that the department "envisages" either direct payments made by farmers as a means of paying back the overpayment; or reducing their next scheduled payment.

"Any other method of repayment will involve farmers directly contacting the financial services section of the department and agreeing individual repayment arrangements," Carroll said.

He added: "The ICMSA has requested that affected farmers be allowed to repay via next year's ACRES payment rather than the next scheduled payment which will most likely be the ANC payment due in...September, a payment [that is] critical in terms of cashflow for farmers going into the last quarter of what has been an extremely difficult year."

Carroll also said that the issue of overpayments were not caused by the farmers involved.

"The notion that this overpayment by the department now constitutes 'debt', and the use of that word in departmental communications is inappropriate and outlandish. This was an error on the part of the department and it should be as flexible as possible in recouping the money that it overpaid to these farmers," the ICMSA deputy president added.