Payments have started to issue to farmers who have submitted valid approved claims for work undertaken in TAMS II, the Department of Agriculture has confirmed to Agriland.

To date, 16 complete, valid payment claims have been received and payments will continue to issue on an ongoing basis in respect of valid payment claims received.

Monies paid out so far under TAMS II are yet to be confirmed. The payment claim system opened to farmers on July 27.

The latest figures from the Department of Agriculture show that some 3,433 TAMS II approvals have issued to farmers, representing 47% of applications.

To date, some 2,184 approvals have issued under tranche one and 1,249 have issued under tranche two. No approvals have issued to date under tranche three.

Some 1,343 approvals have issued to date for the Dairy Equipment Scheme (DES), followed by 829 approvals under the Animal Welfare, Safety and Nutrient Storage Scheme (AWSNS).

TAMS ii

The current TAMS II situation is not only causing frustration amongst farmers, but also increasing the level of stress they are experiencing, Macra na Feirme has said.

Considering the scheme was launched in 2015, to have less than half of the applications processed and approved by mid August 2016, is catastrophic, the young farmers association has said.

Over 7,000 applications have so far been submitted to the Department of Agriculture under the first three tranches of TAMS II, with near 1,200 applications for the Young Farmer Capital Investment Scheme.

To date, some 698 Young Farmer Capital Investment Scheme approvals have been issued.

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Macra has said that currently, there is a great deal of confusion around the status of farmer’s TAMS II applications and that Irish farmers are anxious to commence the construction of various on farm projects due to this being an ideal time of year to begin building.

Macra National President Sean Finan has called on the Minister of Agriculture, Michael Creed, to dedicate additional resources for the processing of applications for TAMS II, to accelerate the overall process and allow farmers know the faith of their applications.

For future schemes, Macra would also ask the Minister to ensure the correct resources are in place when rolling out future schemes so to prevent disastrous delays from occurring again.