Ongoing clawback on entitlements sold without land and surrendering of unused entitlements are currently being used to fund the National Reserve. However, no decision has yet been made as to whether it will be open for applications in 2017.

“Decisions in relation to the National Reserve for 2017 will be considered once the position on potential funding has been established,” a spokesperson for the Department of Agriculture said.

Funding is required to replenish the National Reserve, which provided €24m in funding to 6,000 successful applicants in 2015.

EU regulations allow the reserve to be funded in three ways. The first is that entitlements that remain unused for two consecutive years are surrendered to the National Reserve, therefore entitlements that remain unused by farmers for 2016 and 2017 will be surrendered to the Reserve after the closing date for the 2017 scheme year.

It is also replenished from clawback funding derived following the sale of entitlements without land.

However, the Department said that “it is anticipated that such funding will be limited”.

EU regulations also provide for the option of applying a linear cut to the value of farmers’ entitlements to provide funding for the National Reserve, but this method met major opposition from most of the farm organisations.