Vol. 512 No. 5
63 Mr. Kelleher asked the Minister for Agriculture, Food and Rural Development the level of direct payments made to sheep farmers in 1999; the payments to be made to sheep farmers under the REP scheme; and if he will make a statement on the matter. [26345/99]
To date in 1999, more than £121 million has been paid to sheep farmers under the ewe premium and sheep headage schemes. Payments of the top-up under the 1999 sheep headage scheme, amounting to £2.4 million, issued earlier this week. In addition, it is envisaged that payment of the Euro compensation in respect of the 1998 ewe premium amounting to an estimated £5 million will be made before Christmas. This will bring the total amount paid to sheep farmers this year to £126 million.
REPS is an area based payment. The number of participants whose main or sole farming enterprise is sheep is not recorded.
It is therefore not possible to state the level of payments under REPS to sheep farmers. Nationally, some £430 million has been spent to date on REPS with some 44,000 participants having received payment under the scheme.
