Carol Nolan: Demands extra staff to speed farm payments
Carol Nolan challenged the Taoiseach in the Dáil about the Department of Agriculture's ability to deliver timely payments under the government's 100 million euro fuel subsidy support scheme for farmers, contractors and fishermen and women. She raised deep scepticism rooted in previous administration failures on the ACRES scheme and asked whether additional staff will be allocated to ensure prompt payments.
Immediate question
Carol Nolan put a direct question to the Taoiseach, asking for confirmation that the Department of Agriculture will receive extra staffing to manage the new fuel subsidy payments. Her intervention followed widespread concern among farmers who say past delays left families waiting months or even years for promised support.
Past delays and evidence
Nolan cited significant delays in payments under the ACRES scheme and described individual cases where families waited years. She said these experiences have created deep scepticism in farming communities about the Department's administrative capacity and the reliability of announced schemes.
Government response and implications
The Taoiseach acknowledged past administrative issues with ACRES, noted the size of that scheme and its funding mix, and said the Minister is working to improve administrative capacity. Nolan's exchange highlights urgency for clear delivery plans and resourcing if the €100 million fuel support is to reach recipients without repeat delays.
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Go raibh maith agat, Ceann Comhairle. Taoiseach, having spoken to many farmers, there is deep scepticism about the Department of Agriculture's capacity to deliver timely payments under the government's 100 million euro fuel subsidy support scheme for farmers, agricultural contractors and fishermen and women. And the reason that there is scepticism is that there were significant delays in payments under the acre scheme, which left many, many farm families waiting months. And I've seen actually where one family was waiting a number of years for an acre scheme payment. And, you know, obviously this money was promised and they had budgeted for it. And this is not an isolated incident. Farmers have had long experience, unfortunately, of the department announcing schemes with great fanfare, but then there's delays and it's chaos. My question is, can you confirm that additional staff will be allocated to the Department of Agriculture to ensure that these payments will be made in a timely manner? Go raibh maith agat. First of all, I think there had been issues with the administration of acres, and acres is a £1.5 billion scheme. By the way, a lot of the funding from this government comes from the carbon tax for acres. That's 60% funded by the government and 40% by the European Union, Common Agricultural Policy. And I would take your point, and I think the Minister is doing everything he can to improve and enhance the administrative capacity of acres. The scheme that's announced is an important scheme in terms of £100 million in value. There has to be a degree of working out of that with both terms of farmers and usage of fuel, particularly, you know, some farmers have higher, some categories of farming have higher usage of fuel than others, and then the farm contractors as well. But we're fully aware of the need to have a seamless and a proper delivery system.
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