The submission was made by the Joint Oireachtas Agriculture Committee to the Department of Agriculture.

The decision is a further blow to the 3,000 farmers, known as the 'forgotten farmers', who were identified as being under 40 but have low value entitlements.

In the reply the Department said the definition of young farmer is quite explicit under the EU rules: the farmer must be under 40 and have set up in farming within the previous five years.

They said the Department has no authority to vary them which means that some farmers will not qualify under the National Reserve or Young Farmer Capital Investment Scheme (YFCIS) TAMS II.

Agriculture Minister Simon Coveney has already said that any young farmer who does not qualify for the higher 60% rate under the YFCIS will be prioritised for aid under the other new TAMS II schemes which offers grant aid of 40%.

Initial analysis by the Department of Agriculture has shown there are 3,900 farmers who were under 40, started farming before 2008 and hold low value entitlements.

Analysis has shown that increasing the value of their entitlements to the national average would cost €12.3 million.

Further analysis has found that 898 of these farmers received the installation aid. This would leave 3,000 farmers with a likely cost of increasing the value of entitlements at €10 million.

With 6,500 applications already received under the National Reserve the Department said there is already considerable demand for the €24 million allocated.

The only source of funding after 2015 will be from the claw back on sale of entitlements and from unused entitlements. The Department said that farmers with low entitlements will benefit from convergence that will boost the value per hectare up to 2019.

Responding to the decision, Denis Naughten TD said, “We are talking about one in six young farmers who are presently on very low entitlements under the single farm payment scheme, and if our agricultural industry is to develop we need to support and encourage each and every one of them." He called for a working group of all the stakeholders need to be established to develop a strategy for the ‘forgotten farmers’ under the CAP reforms.