Minister of State at the Department of Agriculture, Food and the Marine (DAFM) Michael Healy-Rae has said that the scoring system for the Agri-Climate Rural Environment Scheme (ACRES) may need to be "overhauled".

ACRES is a major part of Ireland’s Common Agricultural Policy (CAP) Strategic Plan and has over 50,000 participating farmers.

However, the €1.5 billion agri-environmental scheme has been the subject of repeated criticism due to long delays with payments being issued to farmers.

Minister Healy-Rae told Agriland that lessons have to be learned from what has happened with the ACRES payments.

"Since 2023, we actually have people who are waiting and will have to maybe wait until the end of May or at last the end of June.

"Minister [for agriculture Martin] Heydon has been diligent about trying to get all of the remaining people paid. But what we have to do is ensure it doesn't happen again," he said.

"The department of agriculture will have to realise it is not fair on people to have their payments held up and held up through no fault whatsoever of their own and for it to be, what I would call, our fault. That's not acceptable.

"It has happened now, but it can never again happen. We can't a have a situation that in mid-2027, for example, that we'll be owing people money from 2025. That's not acceptable," Minister Healy-Rae added.

"Whatever mistakes, whatever has gone wrong, whatever way the scoring for ACRES is so problematic that they can't literally get people paid, well if it's wrong, it has to be overhauled and it obviously is wrong," he said.

According to the latest available information from DAFM, a total of just over €448 million had been paid to ACRES participants by Monday, April 14.

Of that total, €200.4 million is in respect of participation in the scheme in 2024, while €247.8 million relates to participation in 2023.

Advance payments in respect of scheme participation in 2024 have still to be made to 7,660 ACRES participants across Tranches 1 and 2.

Of these participants, 1,850 are also awaiting their balancing payment in respect of 2023, as that must be paid before the 2024 advance payment may be made to them.

Advance payments, in respect of participation in the scheme in 2024, were made on April 14 to 845 participants, with those payments amounting to €3.7 million.

This pay run brought the total of 2024 advance payments to €200.4 million paid to 46,547 farmers in respect of their participation in ACRES in 2024. This represents 86% of all ACRES participants.

"Advance payments in respect of 2024 will continue to be made every 10 days to ensure timely payments to the remaining participants once their contracts are cleared for payment," the department said.

A total of 1,850 farmers have yet to receive their final payments for 2023. Of these, 1,556 have already received an interim payment of either €4,000 or €5,000, respectively.

DAFM said that in many instances this will cover the entire payment due.

Balancing payments, in respect of participation in the scheme in 2023, were made between March 31 and April 2 to 401 participants, with those payments amounting to just over €250,000.

This brought the total paid in respect of participation in ACRES in 2023 to €247.8 million to 43,032 participants (25,730 General and 17,302 Co-operation), or 96% of all ACRES participants.

The department added that processing of all of these cases continues, and payments will be made every three weeks to those participants whose contracts have been cleared during that period.

DAFM said that the issues which are impacting on the making of payments in respect of each year are primarily:

Contract and ownership/partnership issues;
Issues with scorecards (incorrect score, scorecards not submitted, alignment of scorecards with Basic Income Support for Sustainability (BISS) Scheme data);
Alignment of ACRES data with 2024 BISS information.

The department is "actively resolving the remaining issues", including the development of the required IT functionality and the investigation of issues associated with specific contracts.

DAFM noted that the non-submission to date by participants, or by their ACRES advisors on their behalf, of certain returns also impacted on the making of advance payments to these farmers for 2024.

In October, it was announced that a review of ACRES would be undertaken by the department. That review is yet to be completed.