Following a meeting with the relevant ministers, the Irish Farmers' Association (IFA) has said that the exemption under planning rules for slurry storage is "expected" to be in place to coincide with tranche 9 of the Targeted Agricultural Modernisation Scheme (TAMS).

That tranche is set to open on September 6 and close on December 5.

However, the IFA has said that even with this timeline, the delay still hampers farmers' plans to build nutrient management storage.

A delegation from the farm organisation met with Minister for Agriculture, Food and the Marine Martin Heydon, and Minister of State with responsibility for housing John Cummins, on the promised exemption for stand-alone slurry storage.

The IFA delegation included the organisation's dairy chairperson Martin McElearney, who said after the meeting: "This exemption, which was announced last August, is a long way from being put in place, which is very frustrating for farmers who want to build storage facilities on their farm.

"The only commitment that the ministers could give us was that they expected the exemption to be in place to coincide with tranche 9 of TAMS, which is due to open on September 6 and close on December 5," McElearney added.

He said that the delay "means that farmers who want to apply for TAMS now or begin their work this summer will not be able to avail of any planning exemption".

The IFA representative said that the organisation called on both ministers to speed up the implementation and to include the inflationary impact on building costs in the revised reference costs.

"Both of these are needed immediately," McElearney said.

According to the IFA dairy chairperson, the delay to the planning exemption "in reality" means that the exemption will have no effect in 2025, as it will be 2026 before farmers will be able to have both the planning exemption and TAMS approval to commence work.

IFA Environment Committee member Liam Delaney said that the the exemption is "one action the government could implement to make a real difference and help to further support the retention of our nitrates derogation".

"It must be an absolute priority for the government to get this exemption in place and ensure TAMS approvals are accelerated to allow works to commence," Delaney added.