Minister for Agriculture Charlie McConalogue has not committed to issuing all of the delayed Agri-Climate Rural Environmental Scheme (ACRES) co-operation payments by the end of February.

Around €100m in payments is due to be paid to 18,000 farmers under the ACRES co-operation stream.

Speaking to the Irish Farmers Journal, Minister McConalogue confirmed that the Department of Agriculture will begin issuing these payments in February.

“We’ll look to pay as many as we possibly can throughout the month of February. There are still some of the general [stream payments] that are continuing to be cleared, there is a pipeline there.

“As it moves on, we will get a sense of exactly where all the different applicants are at,” he said.

It was announced in December that farmers in the ACRES co-operation stream would not be paid before Christmas as anticipated.

Reacting to the minister’s comments, Vincent Roddy of the Irish Natura and Hill Farmers Association (INHFA) said it was “vital” that all ACRES farmers in co-operation areas were paid in February at a minimum.

Meanwhile, farmers will find out in early March if they are in or out of the oversubscribed ACRES, a spokesperson for the minister said.

It emerged in December that tranche two of ACRES was oversubscribed, with 5,000 farmers set to miss out on a place.

The capacity of ACRES in total is 50,000. Under tranche one, 46,000 of those spots were taken up and 9,000 applied to tranche two.

Minister McConalogue said he cannot accommodate these 5,000 farmers in the scheme at present.

“We do have a limit, and the budget I have is for 50,000, so the most I have a budget for this year is 4,000,” he said.