Renaghan is seeking a meeting with the Minister of State for Food, Forestry and Horticulture, Andrew Doyle, to address the issue.

The IFA’s organics chairman said: “This is despite these farmers having full organic registration.

The minister has overseen a flawed process with less than a quarter of applicants accepted into the scheme at a time when we are being lectured about the need for farmers to diversify.

“Only 55 applicants out of 225 that applied in November 2018 were eventually accepted into the scheme, despite meeting the obligations of the scheme since they committed to applying.

“These farmers have been contacted advising them that their application was not successful.

IFA Rural Development Chairman Joe Brady has said the first batch of 130 appeals has been sent to the Independent Panel as part of the ANC review.

The Panel was set up to deal with either areas that were taken out or those trying to get in for the first time.  1,500 individual appeals representing 762 townlands have been lodged. The largest number of appeals are from Wexford at 570, with smaller numbers from another 17 counties.

The Mater Private Hospital in Dublin, who have held a successful partnership with IFA for a number of years, have launched a new Vascular Health Programme which offers a rapid and direct access to vascular diagnostic tests.