New reference costs have been introduced for tranche 26 of the Targeted Agricultural Modernisation Scheme (TAMS II), which opened on 9 April 2022. Costings for sheep fencing and sheep equipment have increased from 10% to 15%, as outlined in Table 1. The increase is long overdue for many items, especially given most sheep handling equipment and sheep fencing on mountain lands did not receive any increase when costs were last updated in July 2021.

There has been no change once again however in the reference costs for PDA electronic identification (EID) tag readers and management software and EID tag readers and associated software, with the reference costs remaining at €1,820 and €710, respectively.

Tranche 26 of TAMS II will remain open until 1 July. Details for tranche 27 have not been announced yet and a similar situation has been in place over the last year. The number of applications submitted in each tranche has slowed in the last few tranches, while the backlog that had existed for much of 2021 has not returned, meaning that all eligible applications have been approved in recent tranches.