The Department of Agriculture insists that the delays experienced by farmers due to receive TB compensation payments over recent months have now been cleared.

A total of 16,000 compensation payments issued to farmers to date in 2025 and 3% – or around 480 payment claims – landed with farmers more than two months after regional veterinary offices received all necessary paperwork.

Rising levels of bovine TB have “resulted in significant additional work in the administration of the bovine TB programme for the Department,” signalled a spokesperson for the Department when queried by the Irish Farmers Journal on the payment delays. “There has been an increase in the volume of bovine TB compensation payments that resulted in a temporary backlog in payments.”

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A compensation payment run issued earlier this month “cleared” this backlog, the Department has said, adding that the 3% of payments issued more than two months after the submission of paperwork is a “similar figure to other years”.

This year, a total of €43.1m in compensation issued to farmers up to 31 August, representing around two out of every three euro spent by the Department’s eradication programme.