Dara Calleary (Mayo, Fianna Fail)
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The Sheep Welfare Scheme is a four year scheme that was introduced by my Department in 2016 and runs from 2017 - 2020.

Initial payments under the scheme commenced in November 2017. Payments under the scheme are in the form of an advance payment which issues in Quarter 4, and a balancing payment which issues in Quarter 2 of the following year. As such, payments do not issue per quarter and there is no payment information prior to November 2017. The advance payments have been paid at a rate of 85% in the first three years of the scheme, with the remaining 15% paid at balancing payment stage.

Please see outlined in the tables below the number of applications which received payment under the scheme from 2017, by county, the total amount paid in each county and the average payment per applicant in each county.

Payments for the 2020 scheme year will not be made until Q4 this year. 

2017 Scheme Year

2018 Scheme Year

2019 Scheme Year

Dara Calleary (Mayo, Fianna Fail)
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Please see table below that provides a county breakdown for each scheme year for the numbers of unsuccessful applicants to the Sheep Welfare Scheme.

There are a number of reasons as to why an application for participation in the scheme would be unsuccessful. Typical reasons for this in the first year of the scheme were that applications were returned to my Department incomplete, census information was not returned for one or both of the reference years for the scheme of 2014/2015 or the 2016 census was not returned to the Department as required.

In  the second year of the scheme,  a typical reason was the failure to complete and return the continuation sheet required for applicants to indicate that they wished to continue in the scheme.

Additional issues common across all scheme years were that the applicants did not submit a BPS application, or the required census information was not available in the case of new entrants.

Applications not successful in a particular scheme year could subsequently successfully apply in later scheme years where a successful appeal was made by the applicant.