Mr. Brendan Gleeson:

I do not. State agencies, such as Teagasc and BIM, engage with farmers and fishermen all the time. In the lead up to new Common Agricultural Policy proposals, we had consultation meetings with farmers, many of which were held last year. We meet with the farm bodies and the fisheries representative bodies all the time. In the lead up to the direct payments each year, we go out and do clinics with people who struggle to fill in the forms or understand the scheme. They are hugely successful. I believe we did 17 clinics in 2023 in the lead up to the application period for the direct payments. I probably have the figures about the number of farmers who participated in those clinics somewhere. Other farmers may have advisers but we try to speak person to person because it is an effective way of meeting people. We also have the ploughing championships. We send a big team down to the ploughing and put a big effort into engaging directly with farmers, real people who have real issues and try to help them. We work hard at it, but of course there can never be enough communication.