MORE THAN 113,000 farmers have already received €716 million in EU and State subsidies since late October, Minister for Agriculture Brendan Smith has confirmed.
He promised that most of the €1.5 billion farmers can expect this year will be paid by the end of next month.
The Minister had been criticised for the delays in the payout, which he had arranged to be paid early because of bad weather earlier in the year and poor product prices.
Mr Smith said in September he was confident almost €1.5 billion would be paid to Irish farmers before December 31st, and set out a schedule of payments.
However, this was disrupted when maps submitted by some applicants were not digitised and there were a significant number of claims with minor irregularities. Mr Smith said that arrangements he had made to have partpayments made to farmers whose applications had been delayed over the mapping issue, would see in excess of €100 million being paid out in early December.
Mr Smith confirmed that payments made to date total some €716 million; €535 million under the single payment scheme and a further € 181 million under the disadvantaged areas scheme.
“In reality, in excess of 113,000 farmers have received payment under the single farm payment, while in excess of 90,000 have received payment under the disadvantaged areas scheme,” the Minister said.
Last week, single farm payments worth €16.3 million were paid to 720 farmers.
Also, 2,213 farmers received disadvantaged area scheme payments worth €3.65 million, including 1,228 farmers who received a balancing payment because of the delays.