Just over 1,000 Irish farmers have been claiming over €60,000 in direct EU payments in recent years and would lose out if the €60,000 payment cap now proposed by European Commissioner for Agriculture Phil Hogan becomes reality.

Under the proposal, any money in excess of the €60,000 would be withheld by the Department of Agriculture and redistributed to smaller farmers.

The above number is obtained from the Department of Agriculture’s list of farmer payments – called the CAP Beneficiaries Publication – for 2016. These are the most recent figures published.

In that year, the total payments received by these farmers was approximately €90m, or on average €87,000 each.

The number of farmers claiming these top payments is likely to fall for 2017 and subsequent years due to cuts in EU payments under convergence and other measures.

Pen and paper calculations suggest that the pool of payment money that would be withheld for redistribution, after 2020, would be around €20m. If shared out equally among all other farmers, it would be up to €200 each.

If the payment cap goes ahead it’s likely the funding generated would be given out to priority categories.

The CAP reform proposals revealed in the Irish Farmers Journal last month also include a 3.9% cut in farmers’ direct payments. The proposed payment cap and redistribution would be aimed at part-compensating smaller farmers for this cut.

The Department of Agriculture has full and up-to-date figures on farmer payments and uses these in CAP negotiations in Brussels but does not publish them. The list of EU payments to farmers in 2017 is due to be published at the end of this month.