Some 3,098 farmers in the Results-based Environment Agri Pilot (REAP) programme are from the western seaboard.

A county breakdown of farmers in the scheme shows that some 778 farmers in Galway are in the scheme, the highest number of any county.

It is followed by Mayo with 628 farmers, Donegal with 458 and Roscommon with 336. There are 306 farmers from Clare in the scheme, 206 are from Sligo and 167 are in Leitrim.

An extra 3,000 places in the scheme were secured last week, with almost 5,000 farmers now taking part.

The budget for the scheme has more than doubled to over €20m.

With an average payment of over €4,000/year available, western farmers could be in line to receive over €12m from the scheme.

Dublin has the lowest number of farmers in the scheme, with two farmers accepted. It was followed by Kildare and Louth with 16 and 18 respectively.

In total, 807 farmers in Leinster were accepted into the scheme, 1,140 from Munster are taking part, 864 from Ulster and 2,115 from Connacht - a total of 4,926 farmers.

Of the farmers accepted into the scheme, 9% of both applications and approvals were stocked greater than 140kg N/ha and 91% were less than this amount.