Ms Hannah Quinn-Mulligan:

I am happy to take those. I thank the Deputies for their questions because they give me a chance to clarify some points. Deputy Carthy is right that unfortunately a lot of the support measures that were originally in place for women in CAP were dropped. There are still some fundamental areas in the legal text of CAP to give us a foundation with which to go forward. If you look at Article 6(1)(h), it specifically states that women have to be supported in the next CAP. Everyone on the committee knows that it comes down to the member states how that will be articulated. Part of our mandate is how we think it should be worked out or how we envision it working out. If we look at the Department of Agriculture, Food and the Marine's strengths, weaknesses, opportunities and threats, SWOT, analysis, and to come back to Deputy Fitzmaurice, it references cultural bias. That is the phrase that is used for favouring men over women when it comes to land inheritance. It states:

In Ireland, less than 12% of landholders are women presumably as a result of traditional cultural bias towards male successors, resulting in women rarely inheriting land. This has had a significant negative impact on the participation of women in agriculture at all levels and has reinforced a perception that farming is a male occupation.

It also states:

This poses a further challenge as women are often cited as more likely to drive the change necessary to ensure the future viability of some farm enterprises.

Many of us will agree that there are huge challenges facing agriculture. Not to incentivise or encourage one half of the farm family to be involved in farms does not make any sense.

Deputy Fitzmaurice touched on the numbers in agricultural science courses. If you look at Teagasc it is worrying because only about 10% of participants in its courses are women. If you look at UCD, there is a higher proportion and it is a 50:50 split. If you listen to Dr. Monica O'Gorman, who was on "CountryWide" a couple of weeks ago, she will tell you that the majority of the men are going into primary agriculture roles such as dairy when it comes to specifying it later on in the course but that women are more often going into innovation roles because they know they will not inherit the land. That is scary to me because it goes back to agriculture facing all of these challenges. We cannot spark some kind of brain drain in agriculture. We need young men and women coming back to farms to face all of those challenges. Education is something we need to look at.

We got a freedom of information, FOI, request back from the Department of Agriculture, Food and the Marine on the last knowledge transfer, KT, scheme. Overall, out of around 20,000 participants, just 3,000 were women. If you break that down to individual counties, in Wicklow, for example, only two women took part in that scheme. In Longford, only three women took part in it. These are low numbers. The idea behind female-only KT schemes is not to create any form of segregation because the mixed schemes will still be there for anyone who wants to take part in them. They will be there to create the environment where you can ask questions, including technical questions, about your farm without being made to feel stupid. There are fantastic men out there and I have received so much support from men, but if you are in a minority in any situation, whether you are a woman or a man walking into a room, to put up your hand and ask a question can be very difficult. For example, I was one of three women with about 100 men doing my green certificate in Pallaskenry. As supportive as the management and teachers were, I hated asking questions or putting my hand up because the lads would be either trying to take Snapchat videos or they would be staring you out of it. That is the idea behind the female-only KT schemes. We are not necessarily saying that any extra funding is needed for those but we are saying it would be incorporated into the KT programme itself. I might bring in Ms Kiely O'Connor or Ms Crowley on this at some point because they are part of a female-only discussion group that started organically and they find it very supportive.

I want to touch on Deputy Carthy's questions as well. He talked about the cultural issues and I would say that, traditionally, people have thought of the physical barriers before women. My tractor does not know if a man or woman is turning the key in the ignition. I am a beef farmer but I have been known to milk cows in my lifetime as well. When you come down to it, the buttons on a milking machine and a washing machine are not different. Anyone who says differently has not turned on a washing machine in a while. The physical barriers that were in place are not there anymore so that cannot be used as an excuse.

A big part of the partnership tax credit we are thinking of is that it works similarly to the succession tax credit. It runs for a five-year period and it is there to encourage bringing in women over 40 years of age who are already working on farms in a formal capacity. This will give them the recognition they deserve and need, but work is also being done by my colleague, Ms Kiely O'Connor, who is the ICMSA representative. She has looked into the likes of the McKinsey & Company report, which states that farms and businesses become more economically viable and productive when a partnership is in place. It does not just make sense as an inclusivity factor; it also makes sense as an economic factor.

Ms Kiely O'Connor might share why she finds the female-only discussion group beneficial, she might share some of her thoughts on partnerships and she might give us a rundown on her background. She is a Limerick native but she has ended up dairy farming in County Cork. I would welcome her sharing some of her thoughts on those matters.