Mayo Deputy has accused the Government of incompetence and total disregard for farm families as 20,000 farmers are still waiting for payments and vital information on scoring results

A Mayo Deputy has accused the Government of incompetence and total disregard for farm families as 20,000 farmers are still waiting for payments and vital information on scoring results.

Erris based Sinn Fein Deputy Rose Conway-Walsh says the ACRES scheme has been beset by poor organisation, IT problems and numerous false dawns and promises. 

She says farmers have now people received letters for clawbacks for money when they still have not even received their scores.

Deputy Conway-Walsh says that when farmers joined ACRES Tranche 1 in late 2022, they were advised their lands would be scored in Summer 2023 and payments would issue in Nov/Dec 2023. 

All this she says was done under the constant threat from the Department that if the deadlines were not met serious penalties would fall on the farmers. 

The Sinn Fein Deputy says the one deadline the Department had to comply with themselves was to get payments out by the end of 2023 which they failed to do. 

She has been giving more details to Midwest News.