Balancing payments for thousands of farmers waiting to be paid Agri-Climate Rural Environment Scheme (ACRES) monies will issue on a fortnightly basis, Minister for Agriculture Charlie McConalogue has announced.

This comes as a payment run was confirmed this Thursday for a further 4,404 ACRES tranche one farmers. Another payment run is expected in two weeks.

The Minister has said these balancing payments will continue biweekly “until all participants are paid in respect of scheme year 2023”.

“Payments will issue to 4,404 ACRES tranche one participants across both the ACRES general and ACRES co-operation approaches,” he said.

Scores

Following the issuing of ACRES payments, each recipient will receive a letter detailing information about the scores that determined the level of their payment, Minister McConalogue said.

Payment for the scheme had been expected by the end of 2023. In December 2023, it emerged that over 18,000 ACRES tranche one payments were delayed.

In February, all ACRES tranche one participants received an interim payment of €4,000 for general and €5,000 for co-operation, with many now still waiting for their balancing payment where their actual payment was over the interim amount.

The Irish Farmers Journal revealed last week that it could now be the end of the year before approvals are completed for non-productive investment measures.