The Department of Agriculture will begin its check of ewe premium applications throughout the State as soon as possible, a spokesman for the Department said yesterday.
He said the Department had already reported to the EU major discrepancies in the Cooley peninsula, when it was forced to cull all animals there to stop the spread of foot-and-mouth disease.
The culling and ban on the movement of all animals meant that an accurate comparison could be established between animals destroyed and animals claimed for.
A report in The Irish Times last month that farmers on both sides of the Border had defied the ban to avoid detection was denied at the time by officials in the North and the Republic and by farming organisations.
The president of the Irish Farmers' Association, Mr Tom Parlon, described the report as "speculative and inaccurate". Farmer representatives described as "nonsense" reports that farmers borrowed ewes when inspections were to be carried out.
However, last Friday, when the Department of Agriculture confirmed that 6,625 ewes which had been claimed for did not exist, the Louth IFA chairman, Mr Raymond O'Malley, urged farmers to co-operate with the investigation. He said any deliberate wrongdoing in the ewe premium scheme was unacceptable and should be penalised.
Total ewe premium claims from the 275 farms on the peninsula amounted to 37,165, but Department officials found only 30,540 ewes, a shortfall of 6,625, worth almost £130,000.
However, the most astonishing facts to emerge were that 17 farmers had claimed for 2,000 ewes when they had none at all; that 51 farmers had 20 per cent fewer ewes than they had claimed for; and that 100 of the 275 farms had irregularities in relation to claims.
In the previous three years, however, when the Department had checked 106 of these same flocks, every farmer was able to produce the number of ewes claimed. Most of these checks were carried out after Department inspectors had given 48 hours' notice of their arrival.
The Department confirmed yesterday that it was looking closely at inspection procedures which, over the past number of years, have involved 10 per cent of the national flock.
The Department of Agriculture's Annual Review and Outlook 2000/2001, published last week, showed that Irish sheep producers received £105 million in direct aid from the EU and the Irish taxpayer last year. This was made up of £82.5 million in EU ewe premium payments and £22.5 million in sheep headage payments part-funded by the Irish taxpayer.