Heydon urged to 'step up' and deliver interim ACRES payment
The Minister for Agriculture, Food, Fisheries and the Marine, Martin Heydon, has today (Monday, February 24) been urged to "step up and do whatever is necessary" to deliver an interim Agri Climate Rural Environment Scheme (ACRES) payment.
The call came from the deputy president of the Irish Farmers' Association (IFA), Alice Doyle, who said the organisation has been "getting calls daily" from stressed and frustrated farmers over the delay to their ACRES payments.
Doyle called on the minister to intervene urgently and deliver an interim ACRES payment similar to the one that was issued in Spring 2024.
"This payment needs to be made immediately to alleviate the financial pressures on thousands of farmers around the country.
"The time for talk is over.
"Farmers have done the work required of them, yet they have not been paid,” she said.
According to the IFA deputy president the Department of Agriculture, Food and the Marine (DAFM) has indicated that it is "devoting all available resources to resolve the backlog".
But Doyle said that the "numbers just don’t stack up".
The IFA has claimed that "very few payments have been paid since mid-December of last year".
It also said that recent comments by Minister Heydon that it "could take months for payments to clear absolutely beggars belief".
Doyle added: "We are getting calls daily into our regional offices from very stressed and frustrated farmers.
"Many are checking their AgFood accounts frequently to see if their ACRES payments are coming.
"Lambing and calving time is a stressful and costly time of year at the best of times, so these delays are compounding financial pressures on-farm. Many are also dealing with the clean up after Storm Ėowyn.”
In her opinion farmers "deserve better and shouldn’t be left in complete limbo and unable to get any confirmation or clarification from DAFM on what’s holding up their individual payments".
“It’s just not good enough.
"Farmers entered ACRES in good faith and they need to be paid, and paid now. DAFM need to honour their end of the bargain and get payments out.
"The interim payment was a necessary intervention this time last year. History has repeated itself and it’s needed again as a matter of priority," the IFA's deputy president said.
