President of the IFA (Irish Farmers Association) Eddie Downey has said that Minister for Agriculture Simon Coveney must "seize" upon this confirmation to put in place all rural development schemes.

These include outstanding schemes such as TAMS, Knowledge Transfer, Beef Data and Genomics, targeted agri environment schemes and ANC improvements on off-shore islands.

Downey said it is now up to Minister Coveney to ensure that farmers have access to all schemes under the RDP.

Land eligibility

Meanwhile, IFA Rural Development Chairman Flor McCarthy has said that clarification on land eligibility must be sorted out immediately as there is a lot of uncertainty among farmers who want to avail of both Pillar I and Pillar II schemes in 2015.

"The lack of clarity on this issue has led to disallowances in the past," McCarthy said. "No farmer should have a fine imposed restrospectively, and individual farmers and the country cannot be exposed in the future.”

IFA Hill Committee Chairman Pat Dunne said that one of the issues which has to be addressed is securing a payment for private non-designated mountain land which the current GLAS scheme excludes.

He also said the GLAS+ €2,000 top-up should be available to more farmers and the targeted output scheme should play an important role for farmers who have a lot of designated land.

He added that the flexibilities in place for commonage farmers should ensure that more farmers in these areas will qualify for the maximum payment of €5,000. The payment for commonage areas will be paid on the gross area which will be important for increasing the payment at farm level.