Senior inspector at the Department of Agriculture Paul Savage told the Joint Oireachtas Committee on Agriculture that current issues around ACRES payment delays will not happen again next year.

Speaking on Wednesday afternoon, Savage said that "next time round" payments would run more smoothly.

"In relation to ACRES, there have been delays in getting payments out to farmers. These delays are sincerely regretted by the Department and we have been doing everything we can to both catch up with 2023 payments and to pay all farmers for participation in the scheme in 2024 as soon as possible.

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"We have been making really good progress - payment runs are now taking place every week," he said.

Savage expects that between 97% and 98% of 2024 advance payments will be paid by the end of this week.

Another 95% of farmers will have received their balancing payment for 2024 by this stage also.

'Complex'

Savage explained how ACRES has been a much more complex scheme to administer in comparison with GLAS.

"We acknowledge that because of that complexity, because we were rolling out the scheme, because of the effort that was going into developing the systems while we were rolling it out, elements didn't fall into place in the manner we would have liked," he said.

Advance ACRES payments for 2025 are due this November and they will be paid as soon as possible, according to Savage.

ACRES payments due since November 2024 have still to be made to 1,994 farmers.

Of these 1,994 farmers, 578 are also awaiting their balancing payment in respect of 2023, as that must be paid before the 2024 advance payment may be made to them.

The latest payment run took place on 20 June 2025 - 967 farmers were paid their 2024 advance payment and just 213 were paid for 2023.