The Department of Agriculture, Food and the Marine (DAFM) has confirmed that to date 6,975 farmers are facing repayments under the Agri-Climate Rural Environment Scheme (ACRES).
The department said that 1,191 ACRES General participants and 5,784 in ACRES Co-operation (CP) are in “an overpayment situation” as a result of their interim payment from earlier this year being higher than their finally calculated ACRES payment.
This represents 40% of all those participants who received an interim payment and whose balancing payment has been fully processed and letters have issued.
The flat rate payment was made by the department to address concerns that delays in ACRES advance payments were causing cash flow difficulties on farms.
ACRES
The department said that scheme participants were advised when the interim payments were being made, that if their total annual ACRES payment was subsequently calculated to be less than the interim payment, the amount of the overpayment would have to be repaid.
In cases where farmers received an interim payment which exceeded their total ACRES payment due for 2023, the average overpayment has been approximately €1,741 (General €1,208 / CP €1,850);
Data provided from DAFM shows that 59% of farmers have an overpayment between €101 and €2,000, 32% must repay between €2,001-4,000 and just over 4% will have to repay more than €4,001.
5% of herds had an overpayment of €100 or less which will not be recouped by the department and these farmers will not receive a letter in relation to this.
As the processing of scheme payments has been made, the department has written to impacted farmers to advise them of the amount of the overpayment and provide a list of repayment options, including:
- Direct repayment through cheque/bank draft/postal order, electronic funds transfer, telephone or online;
- Recoupment from the next DAFM payments;
- Deferral of recoupment to the next ACRES payments;
- Case-by-case arrangements where there are particular repayment difficulties.
As of August 30, 860 participants had advised that they wished to avail of the option to defer recoupment to the next ACRES payments, and a small number had requested specific arrangements.
“Further instances of overpayments will arise as remaining payments are processed in the coming weeks, and recoupment will be facilitated in the same manner,” the department said.
Withdrawals
The department has also confirmed that a total of 1,558 farmers from the 56,086 who applied over the two tranches of ACRES have withdrawn to date, equating to a withdrawal rate of 2.8%.
The breakdown of withdrawals, by tranche and approach, is as follows:
Last week, Minister for Agriculture, Food and the Marine, Charlie McConalogue announced that over 8,600 remaining farmers should receive their ACRES balancing payments by the end of September.
The minister acknowledged the delays that have been experienced in the processing of payments for farmers who joined the first tranche of the scheme.
Meanwhile, the department said that preparations are ongoing in respect of advance payments to the more than 54,500 active participants in tranches 1 and 2 of ACRES in 2024.
These payments are scheduled to commence by the end of November 2024.