A total of 385 participants in Tranche 1 of the Agri-Climate Rural Environment Scheme (ACRES) are still waiting for their interim payment, the Department of Agriculture, Food and the Marine (DAFM) has confirmed.
The interim payment to ACRES Tranche 1 participants who had not yet received their advance payments was announced by Minister for Agriculture, Food and the Marine, Charlie McConalogue in February.
In total €119.5 million has been issued in interim payments to 25,061 ACRES participants, while a further 385 participants have not received an interim payment to date, the DAFM told Agriland.
In the cases in which participants have not yet received their interim payment, the DAFM said there “remain a range of outstanding queries”, for example in relation to ownership/change of title.
The DAFM said it is continuing to resolve these outstanding queries with the relevant applicants, and that payments will be made “as appropriate” when this work is completed.
ACRES
Meanwhile, Minister McConalogue said that work is continuing on the calculation and processing of ACRES year-one payments which are expected to issue by the end of June.
ACRES General advance payments commenced on December 15, 2023, and approximately 19,719 farmers were paid a total of €88.356 million by early February 2024, the minister said.
The first interim payment run of €4,000 for ACRES General participants and €5,000 for ACRES Co-operation Project (CP) participants was paid on February 28, 2024, amounting to €113.617 million.
A second interim payment run totalling €5.923 million was processed last month. Thus, a total of 44,780 participants have now received payments totalling €207.8 million in advance and interim payments, according to the minister.
The minister said that the decision to issue interim payments, where advance payments had not yet been received, was particularly due to the “additional complexity” associated with payments to CP participants.