ICMSA says TAMS “Failing” – “In danger of becoming the new ACRES”

The Chairperson of ICMSA Farm Business Committee Chairperson, Pat O’Brien, has warned that TAMS is widely perceived to be failing as a scheme and is in danger of becoming “the new ACRES” – the state’s ‘flagship’ agri-environmental scheme widely accepted now to have failed due to underfunding and lack of focus.

The ICMSA Committee Chairperson picked out payment delays and funding constraints as the most notable sources of frustration for farmer applicants and he said he “got no satisfaction” from noting that the Department of Agriculture, Food & the Marine, had failed to meet the very modest payment targets set out under the Farmers’ Charter.

“It’s not a good look when those who designed and are administering the schemes can’t even meet their own targets. If farmers missed these targets, they would be penalised and the frustration on the ground is enormous,’ he said.

Mr. O’Brien stressed that funding is central to achieving Charter targets.  “The Department of Public Expenditure must ensure that the funding is available immediately for timely TAMS payments. Minister Heydon, given the environmental benefits that the schemes were designed to achieve, must secure more funding for TAMS, it’s as simple as that.”

Mr. O’Brien again questioned the continued use of ‘Rank and Selection’ under TAMS, particularly in light of climate and other environmental obligations which will incur massive national fines in the event of failure to ‘hit’ them.

“We have the Irish Fiscal Advisory Council warning of potential enormous fines in 2030 on the basis of failure to ‘hit’ legal emissions reductions. Why then do we still have a situation where only 25% of solar funding is approved per tranche. Approving 100% would both cut emissions in the present to short term and lower the risk of these enormous national fines after 2023? It’s just the proverbial ‘no brainer’ and we can’t understand how the Department can’t see that”, he said.

Pointing that the farmers were routinely ‘demonised’ on climate change, Mr O’Brien said that those eager and enthusiastic and ready-to-invest in environmental measures are being ‘spancilled’ by Rank and Selection.

“Not alone is it totally unfair that farmers are impeded from improving their farms from an environmental standpoint, there are animal husbandry, farm efficiency, and slurry storage ‘knock-ons’ here also.  We fought ‘tooth and nail’ to retain the Nitrates Derogation but then apply an 80% approval rate on storage tanks and penalise highly stocked farmers, the very farmers who need this infrastructure most. How will that help us secure the next derogation in three years’ time? It’s like asking the referee for a yellow card before the match”, he noted.

“If Government is serious about supporting farmers and starting to move in earnest towards the emissions reduction targets, then fully funding TAMS, paying farmers within the timelines set out in the Charter Agreement, removing ‘Rank and Selection’ and fast-tracking approvals would be a serious and much-needed start”, he concluded.

ENDS     28 January 2026

Pat O’Brien, 087-4904424

Chairperson, ICMSA Farm Business Committee

Or

Cathal MacCarthy, 087-6168758

ICMSA Press Office