The Department of Agriculture, Food and the Marine (DAFM) announced today (Friday, February 9) its intention to make an interim payment to participants in Tranche 1 of the Agri-Climate Rural Environment Scheme (ACRES) who have not yet received their advance payments.
The Minister for Agriculture, Food and the Marine, Charlie McConalogue said that following the commencement of advance payments to ACRES general participants last December, work has continued on the processing of further general advance payments.
“This work is ongoing and is a priority but is likely to take a further period to complete.
“In these circumstances, I have decided to make an interim, nationally-funded, payment to those farmers affected across ACRES General and Co-operation,” he said.
The minister said that more information will be made available from next week, but that his intention is to have interim payments delivered by the end of the month.
“Every effort continues to be made to ensure that all of these payments can be issued as quickly as possible,” Minister McConalogue said.
“Intensive work will continue on the calculation of the full payments due to farmers under ACRES, and when this work is completed, the final payments issued to farmers will take into account the interim payments already made to the relevant participants,” he added.
Advance Tranche 1 payments
The Minister for Finance Michael McGrath was asked to clarify if advance payments will have any tax consequences for farmers by TD Claire Kerrane.
Minister McGrath said this would depend on each individual farmers but in general payments in the form of income supports to farmers “are paid in respect of a full calendar year and taxed in that year”.
“However, in cases where the payment for the relevant year has not issued until the following year, the assessable income for tax purposes will be dependent on the basis of accounting adopted by the farmers,” the minister stated.
Successful Tranche 2 applicants will be contacted by the DAFM in the first quarter of 2024.
Tranche 2 can only accommodate 4,000 farmers.