I congratulate Deputy Currie as well. I look forward to working with her again in her capacity as a Teachta Dála. I worked with her before on North-South matters of peace and reconciliation. That is very important to both of us. I look forward to working in that vein with Deputy Currie. I congratulate the Minister, Deputy Heydon, on his new role. The first challenge for him to tackle is the need to sort out the ACRES debacle. I spoke to him about it yesterday. Honest to God, I have never seen anything like the situation with ACRES. I have been dealing with agriculture since long before I entered politics. This is the worst ever. I would nearly say that the Minister should leave other things aside to get this sorted for now. I have been in contact with the ACRES section in the Department of Agriculture, Food and the Marine on a daily basis for weeks and months now. Several thousand farmers in County Mayo and in other counties are still without payment. My question for the Minister is this: when will all of the payments be made for the outstanding ACRES payments that are needed? What is going on? We cannot understand what is going on. To say there is a computer glitch is okay for a day or two but to use the problem of a computer glitch for months on end, while people are not getting paid, is not acceptable. I am hoping that the Minister will have some straight answers for us today. Farmers are left in limbo as they wait to find out whether they are getting an additional payment or a bill for their 2023 participation in the ACRES scheme. I do not think my time is up.

Sentiment score: 0.11

That is okay. We probably need four hours or four months on ACRES. Throughout last year, the processing of 3,000 outstanding cases for the 2023 payments was moving very slowly. After the general election was called, the then Minister insisted that ACRES payments were on track for a late November payment. On 5 September, it was suggested on the website of the Department of Agriculture, Food and the Marine that 95% of farmers could expect to be paid their ACRES balancing payments by the end of September. That did not happen. Those payments were set aside. A payment run was done for tranche 1, comprising those who joined in 2023. Just 60% of those received a payment for 2024. We can add to the mix around 9,000 farmers who joined tranche 2 of ACRES in 2024, one third of whom have yet to be paid. The other problem is that if you have a query in relation to your file, you cannot ring the ACRES section. Instead, you have to email that section. This is usually replied to with a generic email which states that the Department is processing payments and will be in touch in due course. This is not good enough. Unlike other schemes like the basic income support for sustainability, BISS, scheme and the areas of natural constraint, ANC, scheme, farm advisers do not have access to ACRES payments. They do not have this with ACRES. They have no access to payments or issues relating to files. Why is this the case? This has to be changed immediately. They must have access to what is going on. I need to know today that all outstanding payments for 2023 and 2024 will be made immediately because these funds are badly needed 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 payment of ACRES payments. The Department needs to be more proactive in contacting farmers. There always seems to be a technical issue on the other side. The farmer and the adviser are left in limbo wondering if it is something on their side, but more often than not it is not something on their side; it is something to do with this famous glitch. We have to sort out what this glitch is. This is landing on his table now because farmers' confidence in ACRES is absolutely on the floor as we speak.

Sentiment score: 0.04

The Minister is aware that issues - I refer to probate or other matters - are normally sorted out by the planner, or by the farmer having access to talk to somebody in the Department who can explain why this parcel received a certain designation, or what is happening in relation to it. When one cannot talk to anybody, though, it cannot be sorted out, and therein lies the problem. Untold damage is being done in the relationship between the Government and the Department and farmers and in bringing farmers on board in terms of climate change, biodiversity and everything we need to do. That is why this is so urgent, never mind the fact that we are in the midst of a cost-of-living crisis. All of these farmers in Mayo who are in ACRES will also have had sheds damaged, fodder damage and lines down. I have an email from somebody trying to get hold of Eir to get CCTV calving cameras systems sorted and so on. There is major hardship for farmers at this time of year between the cost of living, not having enough payments and not knowing when they are going to get paid. This has to be sorted out. Is the Minister putting in place a grant to replace sheds for people who have had severe damage? It would be important for restoring confidence and faith, and farmers would know what to expect, if the grant was at least put in place fairly quickly. I am aware of the fishing sector and the damage done to the fishing industry. I cannot converse with the Minister here today without raising that with him also. I ask the Minister to please get ACRES sorted and tell me when all of these farmers will be paid their full entitlement, which is what they were promised and they signed up to. Otherwise, there will be other schemes that farmers will just completely turn their backs on.

Sentiment score: -0.14