Minister Heydon announces issue of ACRES 2024 balancing payments of €33.2 million
- Published on: 16 May 2025
- Last updated on: 17 May 2025
Minister for Agriculture, Food and the Marine, Martin Heydon, has announced the commencement of balancing payments to farmers for their participation in the Agri-Climate Rural Environment Scheme (ACRES) in 2024.
Making the announcement, the Minister said:
“Balancing payments in respect of participation in ACRES in 2024 have commenced, with the payment of €33.2 million to 42,444 ACRES participants. This brings the amount paid to farmers in respect of ACRES to €490 million since the scheme commenced in January 2023.”
Payment in respect of participation in ACRES is made in two phases - an advance payment, which may be paid from mid-October of the year in question, and a balancing payment, which follows by the end of June of the following year. Minister Heydon advised that, while the 2024 ACRES balancing payments have commenced, remaining payments in respect of 2023 and the 2024 ACRES Advance payments will also continue to issue on a weekly basis as cases pass the required validation checks.
Minister Heydon continued:
“While attention will naturally be focussed on the receipt of payments, I consider that we should acknowledge the contribution of farmers, through their participation in ACRES, towards a range of environmental, biodiversity, climate and water quality objectives. The achievements to date include the planting of 566,000 trees, 26,000 hectares under catch crops and the protection of almost 9,000 kilometres of watercourses under the Riparian Zone action. As regards biodiversity, 7,000 hectares of land are providing a food source for birds throughout the autumn and winter, while 21,000 boxes have been built for barn owls and kestrels. In addition, the area covered by results-based actions has increased from 80,000 hectares to more than 1.1 million hectares, and the number of farmers implementing such actions has increased tenfold. The €490 million paid out under ACRES to date is to compensate and reward participants for undertaking all of the actions within ACRES, which in turn contributes to achieving the stated objectives of the Scheme.”
Notes
The Agri-Climate Rural Environment Scheme (ACRES) is the agri-environment climate measure under Ireland’s CAP Strategic Plan for the period 2023-2027. The Scheme is jointly funded by the European Union and the National Exchequer.
There are two approaches within the Scheme:
- ACRES General, available nationally (outside of the high priority geographical area as defined for the ACRES Co-operation approach below), which offers a range of measures (both prescription and result-based); and
- ACRES Co-operation, available to farmers in defined high priority geographical areas. Map in Annex 1 of the ACRES Terms and Conditions for both Tranches shows the 8 ACRES Co-operation zones, with an ACRES Co-operation Project (CP) Team in place in each zone to assist the participants
The issue of €33.2 million in balancing payments to 42,444 farmers in respect of their participation in ACRES in 2024 brings the total paid out under the Scheme to €490 million.
The breakdown of the payments in respect of each year of the Scheme is available on the department’s website at Agri-Climate Rural Environment Scheme (ACRES), with this being updated regularly as payments issue.