Responding to the announcement by the Minister of Agriculture Food and Marine, Martin Heydon, that there will now be a 60% grant with a specific €90,000 investment ceiling available for slurry storage available under TAMS 3 from this week, the president of ICMSA, Denis Drennan, said that the announcement was a welcome signal that the Department has “somewhat belatedly” accepted the logic that the drive to improve water quality has to involve better nutrient storage and that, in turn, has to be grant supported.
Mr Drennan said that he had no doubt but that the improved grant can be a success provided the reference costs are updated to realistic levels and that the planning exemption for slurry storage is announced immediately. If these two elements are addressed, Mr Drennan said he was absolutely confident that the improvements in water quality that we are already seeing would accelerate.
Citing the reports by the environmental group Coastwatch that showed a decline in nitrates levels in coastal areas for the first time since 2012, Mr Drennan said that the hard work and investments made by farmers were now being seen in the scientific data.
“We are turning this around slowly but surely. And the positive results are now emerging on schedule with that time-lag factor that ICMSA had always identified as a given. The Department has to be commended on today’s announcement because the improved grant aid for TAMS 3 Tranche 6 is going to build more momentum behind that positive trend.
“ICMSA thinks that the announcement should have been ‘tied into’ the updated Planning Exemption Law and a real Costings review that would have given the situation a real ‘Hat Trick’ of water improvement measures. We need to see the changes on Planning Exemptions and Costings come quickly now so we can build on the momentum that today’s announcement gives us,” said Mr Drennan.
The ICMSA President said that the Association had focussed closely on the opening and closing dates of the four 2025 tranches and had raised the issue in the recent Charter negotiations.
“Again, this is a deceptively important point: it gives farmers and their advisors the time to plan their investments. But that question of planning also extends to the Minister’s Department; the real test of the new nutrient storage grant will be administration and ‘turn-around’ times in terms of application approvals and payments.
“The Department can really build on today’s announcement if they go at those outstanding issues on concrete inflation and planning exemptions and together, we can all make 2025 landmark year to terms of building on our improving water quality. The 60% grant percentage should be the first of the three actions that will see that momentum on water quality build and build,” concluded Mr Drennan.
