Mr. Brian Smyth:

I have travelled extensively across Europe. I have been in Romania, Poland, Italy and France and models differ. Ireland has two models. In most all of those countries, farmers are paid and they bid for funding somehow. As for social farmers in the Netherlands, the average income there is a turnover of about €250,000 turnover per year. Payments depend on the funding structure of disability services and mental health services. This is about how a society supports people and how people then access those supports. Our colleague from Northern Ireland was on the farm in Malahide today. In Northern Ireland, under legislation from 2014 - when we had our first pilot project - people with disability could apply for their own personal budget and they used that to buy the services of a social farmer. In Ireland, if we had personalised budgets for people with disabilities, it would allow that to happen.