Ms Louise Crowley:

I will follow up on Ms Quinn-Mulligan's last point on the maiden name issue. There are quite a number of farmers, especially in the dairy sector, that for business reasons have gone into companies. The actual family name issue is not as big anymore. I know that, for myself, I would hope to get married at one point. Because my farm has a farm name, which is a company name, I do not believe that losing my maiden name would be an issue. It is something you can work around.

On the question of getting younger people into farming and how we tackle this, I believe there is a significant element lacking in education from the ground up. Some programmes are starting up with primary schools such as face time with a farmer and getting that farmer into the classroom to educate our young children so that they know people, including women, are out there farming and that it is an option.

Like Ms Quinn-Mulligan, I went to an agricultural college. I went on to an institute afterwards, but when I did my leaving certificate in 2013, I was in the last year to do agricultural science in that school. This was a country school in Croom in County Limerick. That year 20 students chose to do agricultural science for their leaving certificate and I was the only farmer on the course. There were 19 people from outside of the industry who took an interest and yet the school pulled the subject. Anyone since has had to avail of the subject outside of school hours if he or she wants to be educated on it. With rural schools especially, farming is around them and the schools should be providing agricultural science on the curriculum.

I went on to an agricultural college, and as with Ms Quinn-Mulligan, there were 107 lads on my course and I was the only female. It was not an issue for me but the agricultural college felt obliged to ring me before the course started to ask me if I was going to be comfortable to attend as the only female, or did I want to go to another college like University of Limerick or Cork Institute of Technology. It did not bother me. I knew what I wanted to do and I was going to go farming, but the educational element could turn other women away from it instead of opening their arms and trying to overcome any issues they might have. We really must stop viewing a woman going into an agricultural course as something special. We are more than capable of doing the jobs, and with some elements such as the rearing of the calves and the milking of the cows, a lot of people would say we are far better. Maybe it is the maternal instincts or having more patience. There is a lot we can bring to it that is better than our male counterparts. It is not there in the education system, however, and it is not giving enough of the chance to get people into it.