Farmers hit by lack of hay and silage for their cattle are to get up to £300 per farm under a new Fodder Rescue Package, which was announced last night by the Minister for Agriculture, Mr Walsh.
In all, the 1999 package will cost a total of £20 million and should go some way towards helping farmers feed their cattle through what has been a very difficult winter.
The new scheme will benefit farmers in all disadvantaged areas except where they have already been paid nearly £20 million under the 1998 scheme.
It will be paid to farmers with beef breeding herds and small dairy herds where the milk quota is less than 35,000 gallons a year.
Payments will also be made, on a livestock headage basis, to farmers in lowland areas who have breeding ewes.
Farmers who have already received payments under the 1998 scheme in the areas designated by Teagasc, the farm advisory service, will receive up to £150, depending on the number of animals they have to feed.
The Minister, who said that an additional 45,000 farmers could expect to receive the new fodder scheme payments, also announced that he will be setting up a Fodder Hardship Fund.
This will be for farmers who are outside the disadvantaged areas - nearly 90 per cent of the Republic - who have suckler cow herds, ewes and a milk quota of less than 35,000 gallons.
Mr Walsh, who has been under severe pressure in recent weeks to help farmers, announced that he is bringing forward EU payments of £30 million which are not due until later in the year, to help the cash-flow situation. In addition, he said, farmers in the Rural Environment Protection Scheme will also get their payments, worth £20 million, early this year.
A Department of Agriculture spokesman said the Minister has also arranged to meet the main banks to seek further flexibility for farmers who find themselves in difficulty because of the poor weather.