The Irish Creamery Milk Suppliers Association (ICMSA) has called on Minister for Agriculture Charlie McConalogue to immediately issue the 2024 ACRES payment that is due to over 50,000 farmers.

It has also urged the Department to finalise outstanding payments under the 2023 scheme, with many farmers waiting "unacceptably long periods" for monies that were due that year and through no fault of their own.

“Under the Farmers Charter 2023-2027, the Minister committed to commence payment of 100% of ‘cleared’ ACRES cases by the end of November 2024.

"Farmers habitually plan their outgoing payments on the basis that such incoming payments are in their accounts on those due dates and any delay can cause very significant issues for farmers," ICMSA deputy president Eamon Carroll has said.

Delays

Carroll argued that the delays being experienced now are very difficult to understand and troublesome.

In 2023, due to it being the first year of the scheme farmers, he said he could understand some teething difficulties with payments.

However, the scheme is now over a year in and the Department agreed to commence payments by the end of November under the Farmers Charter agreed last July.

"The Minister made these very serious commitments and it’s up to him to make good on them.

"[The] ICMSA will be raising this issue at the Farmers Charter monitoring committee meeting later this week, along with the issue of outstanding 2023 payments and we’ll want assurances that all outstanding payments are being issued immediately," he said.