Over 4,000 farmers who applied for Targeted Agriculture Modernisation Scheme (TAMS) solar grants have been told their applications were "not selected".

The Fianna Fáil TD Aindrias Moynihan had raised the issue of TAMS solar applicaitons approved and not approved with the Minister for Agriculture, Food and the Marine.

The Cork North-West TD had also asked the Minister for Agriculture, Food and the Marine, Martin Heydon, if he would provide additional funding for the scheme.

However Minister Heydon has told Deputy Moynihan that TAMS is a demand-led scheme with a defined budgetary allocation.

He said: “The budgetary allocation for TAMS 3 is spread across all 11 sub schemes, therefore it is not possible to allocate a budget to each of the 11 schemes individually.

“Over the first eight tranches of the scheme, all valid applications received were approved.” 

Minister Heydon also added that to ensure the available budget for TAMS 3 is distributed fairly over the remainder of the current Common Agricultural Policy (CAP) programming period, it was “necessary to limit the number of approved applications per tranche from Tranche 9 onwards”.

This, the minister said, was done by applying ranking and selection criteria to manage the budget to the end of 2027.

Solar Capital Investment Scheme

Minister Heydon added: “Specifically in respect of the Solar Capital Investment Scheme (SCIS), the number of applications and the level of funding provided to date has also well exceeded expectations, to the extent that more than 20% of the TAMS budget is being spent on SCIS.

“The average payment under SCIS is €18,777 per application with an estimated value of the overall approved applications in excess of €71 million.”

He added that payments amounting to €39.5 million have issued to 2,107 farmers since payments commenced in June 2024.

Applications

According to Minister Heydon TAMS solar approvals are continuing to issue on a daily basis.

“Given the need to manage the remaining budget available for TAMS 3, in recent tranches I have prioritised approvals for core on-farm investments related to farm safety and nutrient storage on the basis of the importance of continued investment in these measures. 

“As a consequence, 100% of eligible applications under Farm Safety and circa 75% of nutrient storage investments have received approval in recent tranches while approvals for other measures have been at lower levels, including SCIS applications.”

This table (below) outlines details of TAMS applications from Tranch 9 onwards.

According to Minister Heydon there has been “huge enthusiasm” among farmers for on-farm solar energy investments.

He said together with the Minister for Climate, Energy and the Environment, Darragh O'Brien, he plans to continue to engage on improved alignment with Sustainable Energy Authority of Ireland (SEAI) schemes for on-farm solar energy investments.