A package has been offered to some 300 Co Galway farmers in return for allowing a gas pipeline from the Corrib gas field through their lands.
The package, which is the culmination of talks between the IFA and An Bord Gais, will see farmers in the south and east of the county receive a once-off payment of £33.50 for every metre of land used to provide the pipeline.
Farmers in the north of the county can expect to reap the same financial rewards when the developers of the Corrib gas field, off the west coast, bring a £100 million pipeline from Mayo to Craughwell through their lands.
The IFA has yet to bring the details of the agreement to the farmers concerned, but it is expected they will accept.
The gas board will have a permanent "way leave" on which livestock can graze, but the farmer cannot grow crops. The land-owners may not build close to the pipeline.
Mr Michael Kelly, the Galway IFA representative on the negotiating group, said the pipeline would open the west of Ireland to new investment and provide towns such as Gort, Ballinasloe, Loughrea and Athenry with gas.
Farmers in the south and east of the county will be facilitating the construction of the Dublin-Galway-Limerick gas main ring. In the meantime, negotiations are continuing with farmers whose land will be used to construct the Mayo-Galway gas line from Belmullet to Craughwell which will operate by early 2002.
Enterprise Oil, which discovered the field and is behind the initiative, along with its partners Marathon Petroleum and Statoil, is expected to declare the field commercially viable as soon as planning permission is granted for a gas landing plant at Pollatomish, Broadhaven, Co Mayo.
