Answering a question from Fianna Fáil spokesman on agriculture Charlie McConalogue TD about past and planned expenditure on the KT programme under the 2014-2020 CAP cycle, Minister Creed said there had been no funds spent so far as the first year of the scheme concludes on 1 July and initial payments are due this autumn.

The deadline for completion of the scheme's actions was recently extended after IT failure prevented advisers from entering their groups' data.

The minister added that €25m had been allocated in budget estimates for each of the programme's three years from 2017 to 2019. The funds amount to €75m in total and were allocated "on the basis of the current number of farmers enrolled in Knowledge Transfer groups," he explained.

Monitoring of targets and associated budgets is carried out on a continuous basis over the life of the programme

Yet Minister Creed also confirmed that "within the Rural Development Programme (RDP) a total of €100m is allocated in the financial plan for the period of the programme". If confirmed, the projected spend on the KT scheme would therefore leave €25m unused.

Many farmers have been critical of the financial and bureaucratic burden associated with the KT scheme and some have decided to end their participation.

"Monitoring of targets and associated budgets is carried out on a continuous basis over the life of the programme," Minister Creed added.

An underspend on this scheme could make funds available for redeployment elsewhere. However, Minister Creed said during a recent debate on the review of ANC payments that the idea of money being available from underspends on other RDP schemes was "fairytale stuff".

Read more

Full coverage: Knowledge Transfer scheme