The Minister for Agriculture, Mr Walsh, announced a £45 million information technology package in Portlaoise yesterday.
Computer training and testing under the European Computer Driving Licence (ECDL) is to be made available to all staff in his Department, the Minister also said.
From this week, he said, the Department could make payments to customers using electronic fund transfers. When agreement was reached with the farming organisations, farmers could also receive their payments through e-commerce.
It was estimated, he said, that 30 per cent of farmers owned computers.
"You are looking at the end of the cheque-in-the-post syndrome, and in the future, the not too distant future, farmers can opt to have their payments made by e-commerce," he said.
Many of the existing applications for area aid payments, animal health and premium payment systems were either being redeveloped or were scheduled for redevelopment under the strategy.
New applications were being developed on an Internet-based system, for example, STAR, sheep-tagging and registration applications, which allowed for the authorisation of the delivery of sheep tags to all sheep farmers.
The service to the sheep-tag vendors, the first system over the Internet, has proved successful, with applications already processed from 20,000 of the 43,000 sheep farmers.
Mr Walsh said that new technologies had proved invaluable in the fight against foot-and-mouth disease. He instanced the Department's Land Parcel Identification System, which gave the location of every field and right-of-way in the affected area.