Róisín Garvey (Green Party) | Oireachtas source

I thank the committee for having me. It is an honour to be here. If I could bilocate I would probably sit on this panel every week. It is great to hear the witnesses, some of whom I have met previously. They are an inspiration and well done to them on all their work. I do not know some of the other witnesses as well.

It is probably way outside my league to have a clue about what is being said about older farmers, the grant systems and the payments. I will not even pretend. I have a fair idea from my neighbours. It is something on which the witnesses will be dealing directly with the Minister, I hope. I will not even pretend to be involved in it in any way.

From my reading of the witnesses, from having met some of them previously and from listening to what they have been saying, I have a couple of questions. Does Macra regularly meet the IFA at local or national level? Is there much engagement between the two organisations? How do younger farmers feel about horticulture as a viable option? I am into diversifying. My happiest farming neighbours are those doing things slightly differently in some ways. My sister has a goat farm and several of my neighbours are making a good living out of growing food and employing people on a much smaller holding than many big dairy or beef farmers. Another friend is creating a glamping site as well as having a bit of dairy on the side. We have increased funding for horticulture and the number of organic farmers has doubled. Do the witnesses see this as an important part of where Macra and younger farmers are coming from as well as continuing traditional methods? I believe in the beef and dairy industries. We have to give people many choices based on the types of land they have. We want to keep people on the land as much as possible and make it as viable as possible.

I have seen at first hand many farmers turn to horticulture, creating far more viable incomes for themselves and creating jobs. A couple of my friends grow food on 30 acres and employ 15 people full-time. My sister is on 50 acres and has ten staff. The job creation side of it is huge and the farmers do not seem to have to borrow as much money as big dairy or big beef farmers. I am interested in this side of things. I am from Clare where we do not have hugely intensive farming so I am biased that way. I am putting myself in a little box. I would like to work with the witnesses more on this and engage with the Minister of State, Senator Hackett, more on it also. She is a midlands farmer with good land. I am more concerned about subsistence farmers, small farmers and uphill farmers. I look forward to hearing from the witnesses again on this. It might not be appropriate for them to answer all of these questions today but we can take it out of the meeting, which is probably why I am here. I thank the witnesses for their time.