The Department of Agriculture, Food and the Marine (DAFM) has confirmed that over half of the applications made for the "mini-tranche" of the Targeted Agricultural Modernisation Schemes (TAMS) were for generators.

In March, Minister for Agriculture, Food and the Marine, Martin Heydon announced the three-week tranche in response to the unprecedented damage caused to the agriculture sector by Storm Éowyn.

A total of 1,945 applications were submitted to the department by the deadline of March 28.

"Applications are currently undergoing initial administrative checks, with approvals expected to issue to eligible applicants later this month," a DAFM spokesperson told Agriland.

The specific items in respect of which applications were accepted for the TAMS 'mini-tranche' were as follows:

Backup PTO (power take-off) generators;
Sheep, bovine and equine fencing;
Wood and biomass chippers;
Mulchers.

Following the power outages arising from storm damage, Minister Heydon reviewed the scope of generators supported by TAMS to include all generators, irrespective of the drive mechanism.

“The grant is targeted at the generator rather than the drive mechanism,” he said.

The data from the department shows 1,217 applications were made for generators, 363 for wood and biomass chippers, 247 for sheep fencing, 224 for bovine fencing, 184 for mulchers and 52 for equine fencing.

Galway was the county with highest number of applications at 341, followed by Mayo (218), Donegal (208), Cavan (142) and Clare (131).

DAFM said that Galway also had the highest demand for generators (173), along with bovine fencing (64) and equine fencing (11).

Donegal had the highest number of applications for wood and biomass chippers (59), mulchers (46) and sheep fencing (40).