Mr. Tom Canning:

I thank the Chair and members of the Oireachtas committee for their kind invitation and the opportunity to present the case for the support of the private agricultural advisory service providers in Ireland, who have made a significant contribution to the development of agriculture over a long number of years and continue to make that contribution. We believe that we have a very positive contribution to make to the future development of agriculture ,while at the same time providing accountability and value for money for the EU and Irish taxpayer.

We are all members of the Agricultural Consultants Association, ACA. Noel Feeney is based in County Roscommon, Owen O'Driscoll is a consultant in County Cork and I operate out of County Cavan. The ACA is the representative body for private agricultural consultants. We are the largest advisory support network for farmers in the country. In total, based on the basic income support for sustainability, BISS, scheme figures provided by the Department of Agriculture this year, our members provided BISS services to 64,500 farmers as against our counterparts in Teagasc at 41,000. We have over 200 professional members employing over 400 farm advisory system, FAS, approved advisers in the network through 169 offices stretching throughout the country. We are not funded directly by the State. We are funded from contributions made by our members and that is the sole source of our funding as of today.

We are here as volunteers. We act in a voluntary basis. There is so much happening in our industry that this kind of voluntary effort is not sustainable in the long term. Our organisation and members provide the same services as those provided by Teagasc. The range of services we provide can be read in the document provided to members. The key thing is that-----