Good response to farm payments

Ireland: Up to 142,000 applications have been received in the offices of the Department of Agriculture and Food for the European Union’s new single farm payment.

The deadline for the receipt of the forms was reached at midnight on Monday and yesterday the department welcomed the big response. It had issued 160,000 forms.

The new payment replaces seven existing livestock and arable aid premium schemes as part of the radical reform of the CAP under which EU direct payments have been decoupled from production.