Almost 10,000 farmers yet to submit a TAMS II payment claim

It has been revealed that over 9,800 farmers who have received an approval under the Targeted Agricultural Modernisation Schemes (TAMS II) have yet to submit a payment claim.

TAMS II aims to provide farmers with grant aid to improve and/or build a specific range of farm buildings or purchase equipment that may benefit their farm businesses.

The scheme first opened in June 2015 and is set to run until December 2020. It has a total budget allocation of over €395 million for its entire duration.

Some 4,428 approved participants have submitted a payment claim and have been successfully paid so far, the latest update from the Department of Agriculture, Food and the Marine has confirmed.

These successfully processed payments equate to a total of €62.5 million. Approvals will continue on an ongoing basis during 2018, the department added.

Approvals and applications

Continuing, the department update for July 2018 stated that approvals since Tranche 6 are being issued for six months for mobile equipment and 12 months for fixed investments.

In total, over 14,955 TAMS II approvals have been issued to participants so far.

Meanwhile, Tranche 10 of TAMS II closed on June 8 – with a total of 1,829 applications received.

The Minister for Agriculture, Food and the Marine, Michael Creed, has approved the acceptance into the scheme of all eligible applications to date. The administrative checking of these applications is currently underway and the first approvals will issue shortly for this tranche, the department added.

At the end of May, 155 approved applications with a value of just under €1 million had expired. The department is encouraging all farmers with outstanding approvals to examine their approval letter and to be mindful of when their approval will expire.

The closing date for the current tranche has been set as September 7, 2018. It is proposed that Tranche 12 will open on September 8, 2018, and close on December 7, 2018. Following that, Tranche 13 will open on December 8, 2018, and close on April 5, 2019.