Almost 4,300 TAMS II approvals have been issued by the Department of Agriculture and just 274 farmers have submitted claims for payment, the latest figures from the Department show.
Responding to a parliamentary question from Fianna Fail’s Charlie McConalogue, the Minister for Agriculture, Michael Creed, outlined the number of applications, approvals, claims submitted and claims approved for payment.
According to the figures, in total, 8,978 applications have been made to the TAMS II scheme and of this number 4,286 have been approved.
The TAMS II payment claim system, which allows farmers to submit payment claims under the scheme online, opened at the end of July.
In the three months since the payment system opened however, just 274 farmers have submitted claims, according to the Department.
Of this number, 38 claims have been approved for payment by the Department.
Speaking to the Oireachtas Joint Committee on Agriculture earlier this week, Aidan O’Driscoll, Secretary General at the Department, said that future approvals under TAMS II could be at risk of being blocked unless farmers start submitting their claims online.
O’Driscoll said that a colleague of his in the Department arranged for farmers who have not submitted claims to be texted to ask are they going ahead with their investment.
“I think of those that received the message about half of them replied and half of those said they were going ahead.
“This is not something that can be done indefinitely, the Department of Public Expenditure and Reform will not allow it.
“We need to know how much we’re actually going to spend each year or we won’t be able to go on issuing approvals – it will actually block future approvals.
“So we have a problem with people not telling us and not withdrawing the approval [should they not wish to continue with the investment],” he said.