The Department of Agriculture, Food and the Marine (DAFM) is still processing 504 payment claims made by farmers under the Targeted Agricultural Modernisation Scheme (TAMS 2).

The information was provided by Minister for Agriculture, Food and the Marine Charlie McConalogue in response to a parliamentary question from Fine Gael TD Joe McHugh.

The minister could not provide a date when all of the outstanding claims would be dealt with, but said that the processing of these payments is “continuing on a weekly basis”.

According to the latest data published by the department, €177,238 was issued in TAMS payments last week.

Minister McConalogue also said that there has been 941 claims for payment submitted to his department to date under the new TAMS 3.

“My department is currently processing payment claims, and it is anticipated that payments will start to issue in June in cases where there are no issues with the claim,” he said.

TAMS

Meanwhile, DAFM has now approved 63% of the applications made by farmers under tranche 2 of TAMS 3.

Department staff approved an additional 582 applications in the week up to today (Tuesday, June 4).

This means that 5,712 out of the total 9,110 applications have now been cleared, while 419 have been rejected and 206 withdrawn.

The department added that 2,773 applications remain “in progress”.

The following table provides a breakdown of the current status of tranche 2 applications under the ten TAMS 3 schemes:

TAMS 3 schemeApplicationsRejectedWithdrawnIn progressApproved
Animal Welfare Nutrient Storage Scheme2,20099566531,392
Dairy Equipment Scheme21715757138
Farm Safety Capital Investment Scheme3,113191568721,994
Low Emission Slurry Spreading756615162573
Organic Capital Investment Scheme6341512125482
Pig & Poultry Investment Scheme46101332
Solar Capital Investment Scheme7382213506197
Tillage Capital Investment Scheme444271542360
Women Farmer Capital Investment Scheme4382514139260
Young Farmer Capital Investment Scheme5241818204284
Total9,1104192062,7735,712
TAMS 3 tranche 2 applications. Source: DAFM

The data also shows that 330 applications made by farmers under tranche 1 of TAMS 3 are still being worked on by DAFM staff.

7,079 out of 8,203 tranche 1 applications have been approved since last December, 618 applications have been rejected and 176 withdrawn under this initial tranche of the new scheme.

The Animal Welfare Nutrient Storage Scheme (AWNSS) is the scheme with the highest number of tranche 1 applications still “in progress” at 141.

The Low Emission Slurry Spreading (LESS) remains the only scheme with all applications processed under tranche 1.