On Monday 3 December, Minister for Agriculture Michael Creed confirmed that balancing payments for the Basic Payment Scheme (BPS) had commenced.

In a statement issued to the press, the Minister said that the balancing payment makes up 30% of the total BPS payment.

The initial 70% should have reached farmers’ bank accounts in October.

According to the statement, the commencement of the BPS balancing payments brings the total paid under the 2018 scheme to date to €1.12bn to 121,000 farmers.

In addition to the BPS balancing payment, some farmers should also receive the 2018 National Reserve and the Young Farmers Scheme payments this week.

The Minister said that payments under the Beef Data and Genomics Programme (BDGP) are due to commence “shortly”.

Allow time

As a warning, farmers should allow four to five working days after announcements of payments before expecting the money in bank accounts.

If payments do not appear by then, farmers should contact the Department to identify the problem, if they have not been contacted already.

The Minister said that regular payment runs will remain in place under the 2018 BPS as further cases are cleared for payment.

Table 1 shows the other schemes farmers should have already been paid for. There are a number of schemes to be mindful of, so it is important to check that the payments you are entitled to have arrived on time.