The partnership to which the Deputy refers is comprised of two herdowners who had submitted separate applications to enter the ACRES Co-operation approach and were both approved into Tranche 1 of the Scheme, with a commencement date of 1st January 2023. I note that payments in respect of their individual contracts have been finalised in respect of 2023.
As regards their ACRES payments in respect of 2024, I understand that a request was submitted to my Department for the transfer of the two ACRES contracts to the partnership in question. The process of transferring ACRES contracts to a new owner, and updating the herd details across the various systems used by ACRES is underway and is actively being worked on.
I wish to assure the Deputy that work is ongoing to finalise all outstanding ACRES payments, with payments continuing to issue on a weekly basis.