The Garda, Revenue Commissioners and Department of Agriculture have agreed new identity procedures to be put in place at meat factories and marts later in the year.
The new identity checks are part of the tightening of controls on farming and trading found wanting during the foot-and-mouth investigations.
Those controls include the issue of identity cards with photographs to registered cattle dealers, and their annual registration by the Department of Agriculture.
Rigorous checks will be made at meat plants into the identity of those offering animals for sale for processing.
The new controls will be aided by the Department of Agriculture's new technology, which now carries identity numbers for all cattle and, later this year, all sheep in the State.
State-wide checks on applications for ewe payments were ordered when discrepancies were discovered in the Cooley peninsula, where 106 farmers had applied for premiums on 6,625 ewes which did not exist when the flocks were culled to prevent the spread of foot-and-mouth disease.
A total of 51 farmers was responsible for claims for 5,848 of these. Of this group, 16 had applied for ewe premiums on 2,163 sheep when they had none.
On Friday last the Northern Ireland authorities reported on its investigation into ewe premiums fraud.
It found that of 199 farmers who claimed ewe subsidies, 106 had fewer sheep than they claimed for and 17 had no sheep.
The number of animals over-claimed for in the North was 4,741 and of these, 3,187 were in south Armagh.