€16.44m in payments begin under National Sheep Welfare Scheme
Minister for Agriculture, Food and the Marine Martin Heydon has today (Monday, November 10) announced that €16.44 million in payments under the 2025 National Sheep Welfare Scheme have begun issuing to farmers.
The minister said the payments will issue to 13,175 farmers participating in the scheme.
This represents just over 90% of farmers who chose the completion date of October 17, 2025 for their chosen actions.
"A further pay run will occur in mid-December 2025 for those farmers who chose the later completion date of November 28, 2025 for their actions," Minister Heydon added.
National Sheep Welfare Scheme
Applications for the 2025 National Sheep Welfare Scheme, which is a one-year scheme, opened on March 28, 2025 and closed for applications on May 15, 2025. The scheme runs from January 1, 2025 to December 31, 2025.
Farmers were required to complete two actions from category A, which were mandatory actions, and one action from category B, which were optional or voluntary actions.
The completion of all three actions will result in a payment of €11.50/ewe.
If a farmer did not wish to undertake a voluntary or optional action, they could have still applied to the scheme by selecting and completing two mandatory actions, in which case they will receive €8/ewe.
Payments
The Department of Agriculture, Food and the Marine has published a county-by-county breakdown of farmers who will receive payments under the scheme.
The data shows that Donegal is the county with the highest amount of payments worth €2.7 million for 2,919 farmers.
The full details of the payments by county are as follows:
| County | Number of farmers actually paid | Amount paid per county |
|---|---|---|
| Carlow | 285 | €470,525 |
| Cavan | 307 | €319,640 |
| Clare | 89 | €64,795 |
| Cork | 713 | €862,770 |
| Donegal | 2919 | €2,706,631 |
| Dublin | 75 | €106,777 |
| Galway | 1459 | €1,606,372 |
| Kerry | 1234 | €1,925,490 |
| Kildare | 147 | €312,978 |
| Kilkenny | 128 | €218,862 |
| Laois | 102 | €148,324 |
| Leitrim | 485 | €583,362 |
| Limerick | 32 | €50,771 |
| Longford | 142 | €154,300 |
| Louth | 176 | €288,710 |
| Mayo | 1827 | €1,884,610 |
| Meath | 268 | €481,994 |
| Monaghan | 134 | €147,220 |
| Offaly | 127 | €194,782 |
| Roscommon | 538 | €657,056 |
| Sligo | 595 | €715,068 |
| Tipperary | 217 | €376,650 |
| Waterford | 153 | €346,110 |
| Westmeath | 183 | €290,157 |
| Wexford | 292 | €482,546 |
| Wicklow | 548 | €1,041,586 |
| Total | 13,175 | €16,438,093 |
Minister Heydon said that the payments under the 2025 National Sheep Welfare Scheme are "crucial to the sheep sector and farm families up and down this country".
"It is for this reason I fought for and secured a further €22 million for a similar scheme in 2026.
"As a result of the oversubscription in the scheme with 17,278 applications covering just over 1.91 million ewes, it was necessary to adjust the payment rate to €11.50 per ewe which is still a 44% increase from the €8 per ewe paid under the scheme in 2024," he said.
Minister Heydon said that when combined with the €12/ewe available under the CAP Strategic Plan (CSP) Sheep Improvement Scheme (SIS), this means sheep farmers in both schemes will receive up to €23.50/ewe, "an increase of 17.5% per ewe on last year’s combined payment".
“My department will continue to process, as a matter of urgency, all remaining cases for payment as they meet scheme criteria, but I would urge applicants in the scheme who have received correspondence from my department, to respond as quickly as possible to ensure their payment can be processed.
“In that vein, the department is also reminding all sheep farmers that they should ensure they return their 2025 sheep census by February 14, 2026 at the latest, as it is a key eligibility requirement for payment annually under both the Sheep Improvement Scheme and the National Sheep Welfare Scheme," the minister added.
