The agri-climate rural environment scheme, ACRES, is open for applications and there is a great number of farmers keen to take part. Budget 2023 provided for up to 30,000 farmers to take part initially. The applications have been open since mid-October and will run until later in November. It is a very tight timeframe. Farmers are engaging planners and advisers to put together the application, but there is a scramble to make that date at the end of November. If advisers and planners want to go on-site and see the ground to put together the most informed plan, there is pressure with the number of applications, the weather, the late evenings and so on. Farmers are asking whether there is an opportunity to extend that tight deadline so that they can make the most informed plan and be engaged in that agri-climate scheme at the first possible opportunity.

The ACRES scheme is one that the Deputy has promoted strongly and will be of significant benefit to farmers in his constituency. Indeed, it has been warmly welcomed and embraced by farmers across the country. It is a logistically tight timeframe in relation to making applications. It is necessarily so because of the timeframe involved in getting approval for it from the European Commission and also having the application submitted in time for the end of this year so we can have as many farmers as possible in this scheme for full payment next year. I am aware of the challenge for advisers, in particular, in relation to the 21 November deadline and I have been monitoring it closely. There may be some scope there for a slight extension of that, which I am looking at at the moment, and I will revert to the Deputy on that and bring clarity to that matter in the next couple of days.