The State's 3,700 beet farmers will learn later this week how much of the €144 million the EU has laid aside for Ireland's exit from the sugar industry they will receive in compensation.
Since the closure of the State's last sugar-processing plant by Greencore Sugar earlier in the year, the farmers and the company have been at loggerheads over who should receive the lion's share of the compensation.
The Minister for Agriculture and Food, Mary Coughlan, has until Thursday next to make the decision and she has been coming under heavy political pressure from the Irish Farmers' Association to give at least €110 million to the farmers.
It has been running a high-profile campaign and has been lobbying politicians to ensure that "not a cent [ goes] to Greencore" and has argued that a company with little or no interest left in Ireland should not benefit.
Last week it produced figures to show that the Mallow and Carlow sugar plants, and other facilities operated by Greencore, are worth well over €300 million in today's property market and farmers will get none of this money.
Aware of the political sensitivity of the decision, this week's Irish Farmers Journal has identified 10 rural constituencies outside Dublin where the Government could be vulnerable should the decision on sugar go against the farmers.
Writing in the journal, former IFA president Joe Rea said it had sought a political assessment of the constituencies outside Dublin from Noel Whelan, a political analyst, who had identified 10 constituencies: Carlow/Kilkenny, Cork South Central, Cork North Central, Donegal North East, Kildare North, Laois/Offaly, Meath, Sligo/Leitrim, Tipperary North and Wicklow.
In his article, Mr Rea noted that in Kildare North, just 135 votes had decided the last seat.