A €79.5m package for farmers whose forests have been affected by ash dieback is to be put forward by Minister for Agriculture Charlie McConalogue and Minister of State for forestry Pippa Hackett for cabinet approval on Tuesday morning.

The package will provide for a €5,000 per hectare payment to farmers who clear ash sites and reestablish new forests in their place.

The Department has said that the average ash plantation is 3ha in size, resulting in an average payment under the new scheme of €15,000 for affected landowners.

This payment will be in addition to grants covering the costs of clearing and reestablishing the site.

A farmer with 10ha of ash will be eligible to receive €50,000.

Clearance

Farmers who have already cleared and reestablished sites under previous ash dieback schemes will also qualify for this €5,000/ha payment.

This is in addition to an existing €160m scheme that pays farmers to clear their ash forests and replant them with a different species.

Around 6,000 forestry owners have been affected by the disease and compensation was one of the key recommendations of last October’s independent review of the Department of Agriculture’s response to the disease.

Over 25,000ha of ash forests are estimated to be affected by the disease in Ireland.

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Farmers with ash dieback to be paid €5,000/ha

Over 25,000ha of ash forests are estimated to be affected by ash dieback disease in Ireland.