Farmer who applied to ACRES will be contacted in early February regarding their applications. A senior Department of Agriculture official confirmed the validation and ranking of applications is on track to be completed by the end of January.

“At the moment we are still targeting to try and do the ranking and selection by the end of the month [January], so it will be early February when the first communication will go out in terms of farmers being approved,” the Department’s John Muldowney said.

He was speaking at the latest Irish Farmers Journal CAP information meeting in Ballina on Tuesday.

He said the process of validation and ranking had been complicated by the high level of applications. More than 46,000 farmers have applied for ACRES but there are just 30,000 places budgeted for the scheme in 2023.