The Department of Agriculture has told the Irish Farmers Journal that the deadline of 6 October for scheme ‘withdrawal / application changes’ to the Sheep Improvement Scheme (SIS) is in place to ensure that “any withdrawal requests are notified to the Department of Agriculture, Food and the Marine prior to advance payments issuing, which are scheduled for November”.

The Department adds that withdrawal requests received after advance payments have been sanctioned may be subject to recoupment of payment.

Withdrawal requests can be sent to sheepscheme@agriculture.gov.ie.

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Reference number changes

The Department also confirmed that requests to change the year for completing the genotyped ram action will be facilitated after 6 October without penalty.

This is welcome news, with high numbers of scheme-eligible rams still being traded and hill ram sales increasing in intensity.

Advice was also disseminated regarding requests for reference number reductions.

These will also be facilitated after 6 October, but it is important to highlight that reference number reduction requests received after advance payment issues may result in a recoupment.

The terms and conditions of the scheme state “applicants are required to inform the Department before payment issues or prior to receipt of a notification of an administrative inspection if the number of breeding ewes they hold falls below the scheme payment reference number/most recent census figure. The lower number of eligible breeding ewes will then become the eligible number for payment.”

Notification can be sent via email to sheepscheme@agriculture.gov.ie or in hard copy form to Sheep Improvement Scheme, Department of Agriculture, Food and the Marine, Government Buildings, Old Abbeyleix Road, Portlaoise, Co Laois, R32 RPA6.

Reference number check

If you do not know your reference number, it can be found by logging on to your agfood.ie account, clicking on to ‘Ag Schemes – Sheep Improvement Scheme’. This will present a pop-up box with contact details for the Department.

When you close this, there will be an applications list detailing your application. There is three dots to the right of this information and clicking on this will trigger another pop-up giving the option to view your application which states your reference number.