MORE than 40,000 beef farmers will receive cheques worth £19 million in the post today to compensate for losses due to BSE, it was announced yesterday.
A further payout of £51 million is due within a fortnight, according to the Minister of State for Agriculture, Mr Jimmy Deenihan.
"The first of the cheques will arrive in time for farmers to visit the ploughing championships", the Minister joked when he made his announcement here yesterday.
He also said there would be changes to the Rural Environment Protection Scheme under which £100 million would be paid to farmers by the end of this year.
Department inspection of the schemes would be cut from 100 per cent to 50 per cent to facilitate the faster payment of cheques.
The Department had instigated 100 per cent inspection of the farms in the scheme when it discovered irregularities in the system earlier this year. About 19,674 farmers in the scheme had received first-year payments and so far this year, 2,215 farmers had received second-year payments, he said.
"That will speed up from now on because we have reduced inspections because we have found very high levels of compliance with the scheme," he said.
The Department now accepted that farmers and planners adhered to the scheme's discipline he said. It pays up to £5,000 per year for farming in an environmentally sensitive way.
Mr Deenihan said that yesterday lied had ratified the 5,000th early retirement payment, to Ms Margaret Barrett, Causeway, Co Kerry.
Of the 5,000 farmers who had retired under the EU scheme, which pays up to £10,000 per year for 10 years, half were women, he said.
As a result of the scheme, the average size of Irish farms had increased from 31 heel ares to 49 hectares.
Mr Deenihan was expecting 7,500 farmers to take early retirement which would allow younger farmers take over and farms to be enlarged.
Paying out the BSE compensation package would mean a short delay in headage and premia payments which were due, the Minister added.