Interim ACRES Payment From Minister Needed Immediately – IFA

IFA Deputy President Alice Doyle has called on Minister Martin Heydon to step up and do whatever is necessary to deliver an interim ACRES payment similar to the one made in Spring 2024 as a matter of urgency. 

“This payment needs to be made immediately to alleviate the financial pressures on thousands of farmers around the country. The time for talk is over. Farmers have done the work required of them, yet they have not been paid,” she said.

The DAFM say they are devoting all available resources to resolve the backlog, but the numbers just don’t stack up. Very few payments have been paid since mid-December of last year. For the Minister to come out recently and say it could take months for payments to clear absolutely beggars belief.

“We are getting calls daily into our Regional Offices from very stressed and frustrated farmers. Many are checking their AgFood accounts frequently to see if their ACRES payments are coming. Lambing and calving time is a stressful and costly time of year at the best of times, so these delays are compounding financial pressures on-farm. Many are also dealing with the clean up after Storm Ėowyn.”

“Farmers deserve better, and certainly they shouldn’t be left in complete limbo, unable to get any confirmation or clarification from DAFM on what’s holding up their individual payments, or when it’s expected to land into accounts,” she said.

“It’s just not good enough. Farmers entered ACRES in good faith and they need to be paid, and paid now. The DAFM need to honour their end of the bargain and get payments out. The interim payment was a necessary intervention this time last year. History has repeated itself and it’s needed again as a matter of priority,” Alice Doyle said.