Mr. John Joyce:

The land mobility study will be published before Christmas. The IFA, the Irish Farmers' Journal, the Department of Agriculture, Food and the Marine and various agricultural trusts are also involved in it. While we know its preliminary findings, it is a question of what we will do with them.

On Senator O'Keeffe's points about my land grab comments, as young farmers we could say we want the land. However, we understand these older farmers were pioneers in their day too. Not alone that but they also need a secondary income and many of them need to be occupied. Rural Ireland is being depopulated. One only has to go to a local shop to see the majority of the population is made up of old people. It would be disappointing for the sake of not rejuvenating agriculture that these lands would be left idle or abandoned.