Mr. Denis Duggan:

Our opening statement outlines the key figures for the land mobility service. We have facilitated 700 partnerships since the foundation of the service - totalling 55,000 acres of land - where an older farmer may have wished to step back or somewhat retire yet remain involved and they have maintained a stake. They are not selling the land, it is about shared farming arrangements. They are all non-familial arrangements. We tend to stay away from family farm partnerships although we do receive queries on them and we provide information where necessary.

The Senator asked about the appetite for the scheme at European level. To put it in context, we have made a number of presentations to the European Network for Rural Development, which is part of the European Commission. We have also been part of several Erasmus and European Commission-funded projects, such as the Polish Farm Advisory Service, the University of Bedfordshire in the UK and other European partners which are looking for similar types of solutions, including the National Farmers Union in Northern Ireland and the Ulster Young Farmers, who are working in collaboration on a similar land mobility service. We have given those two organisations a lot of support in setting up the service in Northern Ireland. There is an appetite. It does need a little tweaking from jurisdiction to jurisdiction because of the various different local issues which arise but it is recognised at European level as being a critical tool in the tool box to support generational renewal. A key tenet of our lobbying, through the European Young Farmer network in the Conseil Européen des Jeunes Agriculteurs, CEJA, and to the Commission, has been to have a mechanism included in the next CAP to support at member state level a land mobility service from member state to member state.