Over the past two months, the figure of active participants has moved from 28,807 to 27,790. The latest figure from the Department of active participants in the BDGP is 26,658. This figure takes into account the 2,939 applicants who left the scheme after the deadline for applications closed in June, and the 66 farmers who subsequently re-entered it and were accepted.

Some 29,531 valid applications were received for the programme in June, representing almost half of the number of suckler farmers in Ireland.

Minister for Agriculture Simon Coveney supplied the information to TD Denis Naughten this week in a parliamentary question.

Recently Coveney announced a December BDGP payment if all surveys and samples in relation to animals born up to 30 June 2015 were completed and returned to the Irish Cattle Breeding Federation (ICBF) by Tuesday 8 December.

As of today, Sunday 6 December, this gives participating farmers one more day to meet the scheme’s obligations.

However, the news comes despite the fact that ICBF chief executive Sean Coughlan recently warned the Oireachtas Joint Committee on Agriculture that unless the genotype samples from the almost 9,000 farmers who have yet to submit samples were returned by Tuesday 1 December, it was unlikely their applications would be processed in time to receive payment before Christmas.

The most recent numbers show that up to 19,000 farmers have returned all required data as part of the BDGP scheme.