Furious reaction to closure of scheme

THERE was a furious political and farm lobby reaction yesterday to an announcement by Agriculture, Fisheries and Food Minister Mary Coughlan that the farm improvement scheme had reached the level of funding available and, as a result, was closed to new applications for now.

Fine Gael, the Irish Farmers Association (IFA) and the Irish Creamery Milk Suppliers Association (ICMSA) described the scheme as being vital to the future development of farming.

Ms Coughlan said a rush of applications has resulted in the full envelope of funds for the scheme being reached. Total applications received in the past few weeks accounted for 37% of the 11,000 received since the scheme was launched in July. This is on top of the 48,000 applications under the farm waste management scheme.