The money is the NI share of the €36.1m allocated to the UK as part of a wider €500m aid package announced by the European Commission in mid-September.

The full allocations across the regions were based on 2014/15 milk production figures. They work out at:

•England £15.5m.

•Northern Ireland £5.1m.

•Wales £3.2m.

•Scotland £2.3m.

In England the package averages £1,820 per dairy farm. In Scotland, their allocation is worth approximately £2,620 per dairy farm.

However, on a per-litre basis. NI actually gets slightly more than the other regions after the European Commission pointed out to Defra the greater pain felt here by dairy farmers due to our exposure to world commodity prices. For that reason, the UK received an extra €1.5m, all of which is coming to NI.

The Minister said: “In my meetings with Commissioner Hogan and DEFRA Secretary Liz Truss, I have been strenuously pushing for immediate support for our hard-pressed farmers. I made a strong case for differentiated aid for the north given the drastic price reductions here compared with Britain and as a result I have secured a better deal for our farmers, in that they will share a total aid package worth £5.1m, almost a fifth of the Member State allocation."

In NI the aid works out at 0.23p per litre. When put across 2,655 dairy farms (2014 census results), it is an average of £1,921 per farm. A million-litre producer receives £2,298.