The Micro Renewable Energy Federation (www.mref.ie) has criticized the Minister for Agriculture, Food and the Marine, Martin Heydon TD, for throwing the TAMS Solar Scheme ‘under the bus’ in the latest revisions to the TAMS scheme where ‘ranking and selection’ has been introduced for Tranche 9 and future applications.
MREF Chairman, Ciaran Kells, said today (Wednesday) that the decision to slash TAMS grant availability would be hugely disappointing for thousands of farm families planning to reduce their carbon footprint, emissions and energy costs with the help of a TAMS grant to install solar PV panels on their farm buildings.
He said: “This is both a serious blow to the micro-generation of renewable power on farms and to indigenous Irish enterprise where over 300 companies had registered with the Department of Agriculture to provide installation services to the sector. There is no doubt that this decision will result in hundreds of job losses across the country and the disappearance of a vital skills base among installers.”
Mr. Kells said that the decision to slash availability of grant supports for solar PV under TAMS sent a very negative and confusing message to the farming community which had embraced the farm solar scheme under TAMS and who want to take action to reduce their carbon emissions.
Mr. Kells said that it beggars belief to see the Government providing massive supports for large scale developers and foreign investors to take thousands of acres of top-class land out of production for solar farms while the renewable energy potential of farm roofs are lying idle.
He said: “Government agencies are continually spouting a negative and untrue view of farmers, that they are climate laggards and yet the supports for a popular decarbonisation scheme that has been widely adopted by farmers is being slashed.”
Mr. Kells said that, at a minimum every farmer who has applied in good faith for grant supports under tranche 9 and 10 should be approved for their TAMS grant as they have already incurred time and cost in making an application.
Mr. Kells said the Minister’s case for restricting availability of TAMS grant supports for solar power on farms due to lack of funding lacks any credibility. He said: “At the same time that the Minister is stopping grant supports for renewable power on farms he has extended TAMS supports to farmers wishing to replace a roof on a shed. Re-roofing sheds has nothing to do with climate action.
Furthermore, how does the Minister propose to fund the multi-million-euro bill that will be faced with when farmers turn to the Department to fund the repair and replacement of shed roofs after the next storm under TAMS rather than going to their insurers, which should be the case?”
Mr. Kells added: “Farmers who wish to install solar PV going forward also need to be VAT exempted in the same way that currently applies to home owners. This measure is cash neutral but will help cash flows for farmers who currently have to pay VAT and then reclaim it from the revenue.”
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