Minister for Public Expenditure Paschal Donohoe has allocated an additional €107 million to the Rural Development Programme to avoid “imbalanced regional development” in parts of the State.

The programme, which is part of the EU Common Agricultural Policy, is designed to build capacity and competitiveness in the agri-food sector. It includes measures to assist disadvantaged farmers, as well as agri-environment schemes.

Mr Donohoe said the additional funding would help rural communities. “When this Government was formed, we paid particular attention to rural Ireland and today’s budget reflects our determination to help rural communities,” he said.

“We cannot allow the threat of imbalanced regional development to endanger our economic growth. This is why we have increased funding to the rural development programme by €107 million, from €494 million in 2016 to €601 million in 2017.

“This includes provision of €25 million for a new animal welfare scheme for sheep to support Ireland’s vitally important sheep sector.”

A spokesman for the Department of Agriculture said significant spending on farming schemes through the programme will see the €601 million “go directly to farmers” in 2017.

This will come in the form of the welfare scheme for sheep, as well as increased participation in other farm schemes such as GLAS, BDGP and TAMS.

Minister for Agriculture Michael Creed said: “This will allow for the reopening of GLAS to 12,000 more participants as well as BDGP and TAMS, the introduction of a new €25 million sheep welfare scheme, and the payment of €25 million through the knowledge transfer scheme.”