Victor Boyhan (Independent)

I welcome the witnesses and those in the Visitors Gallery. I am conscious that there are two groups before us today, Social Farming Ireland and Kerry Social Farming. With regard to Social Farming Ireland, which is the group I know better, I thank Ms Doherty and Mr. Smyth for the invitations to the open days. I was at an open day on Monday, with a number of other parliamentarians, at the farm of Nuala and David Reck outside Enniscorthy. I want to share with the witnesses and my colleagues on this committee my takeaways from that experience. Yet again, it stirred up in me the importance and significance of social farming and social interaction. I have been involved for many years. I established a horticultural unit in the mental health services of St. John of God, and I have tracked that for many years, so I am very familiar with this area.

My takeaways are captured in four key expressions that were given to me by participants, or their guardians or parents, on Monday. The first was: “My weekly attendance has increased my confidence not only in the farm environment but in my daily life.” Another was: “Support and feeling connected are of the utmost importance to me, and when struggling with anxieties about the world and other people, I find the farm a calming and supporting place.” The third statement was: “Providing social farming services has brought me a new lease of life, but it has brought a new lease of life to our farm and our neighbouring farmers.” The final comment was: “Allowing us to share our connection to the land in our community and with nature is powerful, empowering and supporting, and makes me find that I have a place within my own community.” What more can you say? They were the messages I took away from that. The one thing I asked about people’s experiences was how long they could stay there. It is all well and good having a service, but the continuity of the service is important.

My main question to the witnesses concerns core funding and the need for multi-annual funding. They cannot plan their programmes without multi-annual funding. It strikes me, having visited a number of the projects, and from reading the submissions from the Kerry group, that there are ongoing challenges around costs. I will deal first with Social Farming Ireland and then with Kerry Social Farming. How do they deal with funding? What are their current sources of funding? What would they like to see happen? I want this committee to have clear takeaways from their contributions today. I will begin with Social Farming Ireland.