Rose Conway-Walsh on Acres payments crisis and farmer frustration

Firstly, I want to congratulate Deputy Currie as well, and I look forward to working with her again in her capacity as a TD very much. You'll know I've worked with you before in terms of the North-South stuff and peace and reconciliation, and that's very important to both of us, and I look forward to working in that vein, Deputy Currie. And Deputy Hayden, congratulations on your new role. And the first challenge for you to tackle is in sorting out the Acres debacle. I spoke to you about it yesterday, but honest to God, I have never seen anything like the situation with Acres. I have been dealing with agriculture for way before I ever entered politics, and this is the worst ever. So I would nearly say just leave things aside to get this sorted for now. I've been in contact with the Acres Department in Agriculture on a daily basis for weeks and for months now, and several thousand farmers in Mayo and in other counties are still without payment. So my question for you today, Minister, is when will all of the payments be made for the outstanding Acres payments that are needed? And just what is going on? Like this is what we cannot understand. What is going on? I mean to say there's a computer glitch you can say okay for a day or for two, but to use the problem of a computer glitch for months and months on end and people not getting paid just is not acceptable. And I'm hoping that you'll have some straight answers for us here today. Farmers are still left in limbo to find out if they're getting an additional payment for a bill for their 2023 participation in the Acres scheme. I don't think that was four minutes. The processing of 3,000 outstanding cases for the 2023 payments was moving very slowly, Minister, but with the announcement of the general election, the Minister insisted that Acres payments were on track for a late November payment. Indeed here, even in looking at the Department of Agriculture website, on the 5th of September it said that 95% of farmers expected to be paid Acres balancing payments by the end of September. That did not happen. Those payments were set aside and a payment run was done for Tranche 1, that is those who joined in 2023. Now only 60% of those received a payment for 2024 and added to the mix of around 9,000 farmers who joined Acres in 2024 and Tranche 2, one-third of these have yet to be paid. The other problem is, Minister, if you have a query in relation to your file, you cannot ring the Acres section but instead have to email that section. Now this is usually replied with a generic email which states that the Department are processing payments and will be in touch in due course. This isn't good enough. Unlike other schemes like BIS and like ANC etc, farm advisors don't have access to the Acres payments. This is not the case with, so they don't have this with Acres and they have no access to payments or issues relating to files. Why is this the case, Minister? This has to be changed immediately. They have to have access to what's going on. I need to know today that all outstanding payments for 2023 and 2024 will be made immediately as these are badly needed funds for each farm household. The Department upholds a very rigid set of deadlines that farmers have to adhere to or penalties will issue. However, there is no issue with the Department missing deadline after deadline when it comes to the processing and payments of Acres. The Department needs to be more proactive as well in contacting farmers. It seems to be always a technical issue on the other side. Now the farmer and the advisor are left in limbo wondering if it's something on their side. But more often than not, it is not something on their side. It's something to do with this famous glitch. Now we have to sort out what this glitch is, Minister, or that's what lands on your table now. Because farmers' confidence in Acres is absolutely on the floor as we speak. Thank you Deputy. Minister, you have four minutes. Go raibh maith agat, Cairlach. And can I thank Deputy Cormann Walsh for raising what is a really important issue. I thank her for her good wishes at the start and say, look, this is a topic that is a real bugbear for farmers. Absolutely. If you're caught in this, the frustration is palpable. And I'll go through the detail on this in a minute. But I just want to put on the record that, you know, the points you raise in terms of the overall scheme and the frustration of it point to some of those frustrations for those who have got caught, that percentage who have got caught up in the complexity of the system. So I really understand the significant challenge it is if you haven't got that clarity or if you haven't got the full payment in that space. And if farmers haven't had clear communication, then that too is we can deal with anything as business people. Farmers are a resilient bunch. If we know what we're dealing with, if we know the timelines, we know the impediment, that communication has got to be very clear where we can clearly communicate where the impediment is. In some instances, farmers, the impact is on their side. There are issues around probate or different elements around title. We will work with them on that. And I want to what I'm looking to do at the minute is get a full detailed brief on exactly how many are in that space and how many are in the space where the issue is on the department side. And on the department side, where are the impediments on our side, if extra resources are needed, I'm very clear that they'll be found and we will do everything we can, move might and main to get this addressed as quickly as possible. But in the time I have, I do want to just say that, you know, Acres is a flagship agro-environmental and climate measure under Ireland's CAP Strategic Plan 23-27 with 1.5 billion euro allocated to the scheme over its duration. The design of the scheme was informed by lessons learned through the green low-carbon agri-environmental scheme GLOSS and the results-based environmental agri-pilot project REAP, an experience gained in locally led projects undertaken under the EIP model, the European Innovation Partnerships. Acres has been a big change deputy in our approach to agri-environmental schemes and it was a very ambitious scheme. It is that it involves the scaling up of results-based approach to a national level. The level of payments is determined by the score assigned to the land, so the higher the quality of the habitat, the higher the resulting payment. There are also two approaches within the scheme, an Acres cooperation approach, as you be aware, available in eight zones which have high nature value and an Acres general approach available nationally outside those eight zones. In response to the high level of interest in participating in Acres, it was decided that all valid applications for the scheme would be accepted, the outcome of which is that there are now some 54,300 farmers in Acres. The rollout of the scheme from October 22 and the commencement of contracts in January 23 necessitated the development of an extensive new IT functionality and the upskilling of advisors in relation to the assessment and scoring of lands. The scheme is also linked to several IT systems within my department. For example, the claim for payment under Acres is submitted through BIS, while scores from the assessment of lands are submitted on the department's GLAM model or the generic land management system. The development of these platforms had to coincide with the rollout of the scheme. There is significant work involved in the verification of claims and in the calculation and issuing of payments to over 54,000 participants. Most of these applications consist of a number of actions, or there may be a number of different habitats to be assessed and multiple scorecards to be completed and submitted. Payments has been finalised to 94% of Acres Tranche 1 participants in respect of their participation in the scheme in 2023 to a total value of £247.1 million. Balancing payments in respect of 2023 remain to be made to approximately 2,700 farmers. Certain issues such as transfer of contracts, alignment with BIS and issues with scorecards have contributed to delay in making in some of these payments. Work is ongoing to resolve these issues and every effort has been made to process outstanding payments as quickly as possible. It is important to point out that interim payments of 4,000 and 5,000 euro amounting to almost 120 million euro were paid in February and March of 2024 to 25,000 Acres participants who had not at that point received the advanced payment of participation in 2023. I can touch on this more in the supplementary. Thank you Deputy. Thank you Minister. Minister you know that issues are normally sorted out whether it be probate or whether it be other things are sorted out by the planner or the farmer having access to talk to somebody in the department and to say this is why this parcel was so and so or this is this is what's happening in relation to that but when you cannot talk to anybody it cannot be sorted out and there in the problem lies. Now Minister I think there's absolutely untold damage done between the relationship with government with the department and farmers in terms of bringing farmers on board for climate change, biodiversity and everything we need to do and that is why this is so urgent. Never mind the fact that we are in the midst of a cost to living crisis. Now all of these farmers in Mayo that are in Acres will also have had sheds damaged, father damaged, lines down, I mean I have an email here from somebody in relation to even trying to get a hold of air and get CCTV, calving cameras, systems sorted, all of those things. It is huge huge hardship for farmers at this time of year between the cost of living, between not having enough payments and not knowing where they're going to to get paid. So this absolutely has to be sorted out and I want to ask you Minister are you putting in place a grant to replace the sheds for people who have had severe damage there. I think it's important to restore that confidence or that faith that if that grant was at least put in place fairly quickly so that farmers would know what to expect there. So I want to ask you that there as well today and besides I know as well in terms of the fishing and the damage done to the fishing industry as well I cannot be conversing with you here today Minister without raising that for you as well but please please get Acres sorted and tell me when all of these farmers are going to be paid and paid out their full entitlement what they were promised what they signed up to do otherwise you'll have other schemes that farmers will just completely turn their backs on. Thank you Deputy Minister, two minutes. Look Deputy you raise a number of different issues there and like I've been over in the west of Ireland meeting with a number of farmers affected by the storm and I know actually the farmers were talking about here in relation to Acres many of them are impacted by that storm in a range of different issues and we stand ready to support them and you know initially we're getting their power and their water back but I'm conscious this debate was about Acres here and this is what I do want to give the clarity on the record in relation to that area because look 2023 was a really challenging year in terms of this brand new system that was very ambitious and and did have a level of complexity that previous agro-environmental schemes didn't have and with that you know we have to manage those complexities and challenges and that's why we paid four thousand and five thousand euro interim payments amounting to almost 120 million euro to farmers last year to make up for that fact so the vast majority of farmers did get a payment in that space and we now are working through the final calculation for those 2,700 who were outstanding as exactly what the amount their due was and for those who have required a top-up payment and that will be pursued and we're dealing with the processing of those balancing payments now on a case-by-case basis and they are some of the more complex issues just in relation to your point around where there's issues around probate and title deed and talking to an official in the department of agriculture can sort that out absolutely agree we need clear communication farmers absolutely require that the very officials who were getting working through these detailed complex cases are the same ones who spend all that time on the phone as well but for the likes of probate or something you know but it's a title deed issue it does go into land registry it's not the department of agriculture so what we have to do is clearly communicate where there is a title deed issue the farmers then know what their steps are and if there's a large i make a commitment here if there's a large amount of those that are impacted in a similar way i'll use my office to talk to land registry and others to try and see how we move them ultimately here deputy i take on board the frustration that there is with farmers impacted in this we have had um the you know the 2024 has seen really a significant improvement in terms of processing through them getting on top of the issues that were highlighted in 23 75 of acres payments um advanced payments made in 24 a reflection the progress has been made in the delivery of the required it systems there's more to be done and i'm continuing to work on that and it is a very big priority for me um to resolve this issue to for the very reason you outline around and you know the confidence that we need to have in this agro environmental scheme that so many farmers wanted to sign up for and i'm very proud of the fact that we were able to facilitate all of those farmers being able to access it now we want to make sure those who have money outstanding or have outstanding issues are dealt with as quickly as possible thank you minister