Most letters of offer under the Tier 2 capital grant scheme will be issued to successful applicants by the end of September, DAERA has said.

On enquiry, a Department spokesperson said 68 letters of offer have been issued to date and this equates to £8m of grant funding, which is around half the available budget.

In May 2022, DAERA received 199 applications for the scheme, which allows up to 40% grant funding on large-scale projects costing over £30,000, up to a maximum grant of £250,000.

The DAERA spokesperson confirmed that 54 applications have passed the two-stage assessment process and are currently on a reserve list.

The Department said another 32 applications are still under assessment, which would suggest that 45 applications have either been withdrawn by the applicant or rejected by DAERA.

Reserve

Each application on the reserve list has been assigned a score, which is used to prioritise applications when grant funding is being assigned.

“As the scheme is heavily over-subscribed and operates as a competitive process, letters of offer are released periodically for the highest-scoring applications, to ensure budget management of the total grant available,” the DAERA spokesperson said.

“The vast majority of remaining applicants will be informed of the final outcome of their application by 30 September 2023,” the spokesperson told the Irish Farmers Journal.