The Government is considering “gap payments” for farmers who are locked out of the Agri Climate Rural Environmental Scheme (ACRES) next year, An Taoiseach Leo Varadkar has said.

In response to a question from the Irish Farmers Journal, he said that the oversubscription to the scheme was discussed at the cabinet sub-committee meeting this week.

“We are examining, Minister [for Agriculture Charlie] McConalogue is examining, means by which we could bring in a second tranche of farmers at a later point and then perhaps given give them a gap payment in the meantime.

“The last thing we want to say to farmers, who want to come on this journey, is that there aren’t enough places on the scheme,” he said.

There are 30,000 places in the scheme for 2023 and 46,000 farmers have applied for those 30,000 places. A further 20,000 places are to open later next year.

Encouraging

“I think it’s hugely encouraging that 46,000 farmers have applied to join that scheme and I’m conscious that when we’re saying to farmers that we want you to take climate action, we need to say to farmers that when you apply for a scheme you should be able to get on it,” Varadkar said.

“I’m conscious at the moment there’s only about 30,000 places available. We did discuss this at the cabinet sub-committee the other day, with Ministers Hackett, Heydon and McConalogue and my understanding is that because of limitations around the number of farm advisors and so on, only so many farmers can be on the scheme at one time,” he added.

The Minister for Agriculture Charlie McConalogue and his Department of Agriculture officials are understood to be pushing for solutions to the oversubscription.