Representatives from the Department of Agriculture, Food and the Marine (DAFM) will go before the Oireachtas Joint Committee on Agriculture and Food today (Wednesday, June 25).

The committee is meeting for engagement on delays to DAFM scheme payments.

The committee, made up of 14 members, will meet at 3:30p.m to hear from seven DAFM officials.

Speaking ahead of the meeting, Oireachtas committee chair, Fianna Fáil Cork North-West TD, Aindrias Moynihan, said that delays of DAFM scheme payments to recipients remains an "ongoing concern and an unacceptable issue".

"We welcome the department officials to the meeting and we will be asking for in-depth detail on why this problem persists and what has been implemented in order to address the on-going issues," Deputy Moynihan said.

At a meeting of the Select Committee on Agriculture and Food last week, Minister for Agriculture, Food and the Marine Martin Heydon acknowledged the significant payment delays experienced with ACRES.

However, he said he believes that "we are now in a space where the solutions that have been put in place are permanent and we will not see anything similar to these challenges in the coming years".

More than €500 million has been paid out to Irish farmers since 2023 through ACRES, but a "dark cloud hangs over it because not every farmer was paid", the minister said.

"My approach has been about addressing that for each farmer who was unpaid and ensuring he or she is paid as quickly as possible while at the same time making sure that those who were not impacted by that got their balance and payments in 2024 as expected," he added.

The minister said that "considerable progress" is being made in recent weeks to drive the number of outstanding payments down further.