Martin Kenny (Sligo-Leitrim, Sinn Fein)

I welcome all the participants who are here and thank them for their statements. I am certainly conscious of how social farming has grown in County Leitrim over the past decade or more, and how it has provided leadership to many other places around the country. That is to be commended. Without that, many places would not have been able to get it started. The example was there. Often when we have a good strong example of how something can be done, other places can benefit so much from that.

Senator Boyhan, who was here a few minutes ago, talked about the funding as being one of the key things and, of course, it is. It is one of these things in society where we invest and we get a return. The return that comes from this small amount of investment is immense. It saves the State huge amounts of money in future care, etc., that it would have to put in to people. If these people get that correct small development at an early age and in the right environment, they flourish, do well and do not need the care that they might otherwise need. Thank God, we have moved from where things often were in the past in this country when a lot of people with different abilities rather than disabilities ended up in all kinds of institutions. This is an example of ensuring that we can have a facility in place which will give people that chance to be able to do something productive. Being with animals and being with nature enhances people's mental health and ability to move forward.

The asks that have been brought here today, both from the people from the kingdom and from the rest of the country, are small compared to the benefits which will come from them. They certainly will have the support of everyone on the committee. We will, of course, ask the Department of agriculture to enhance its funding. Funding also needs to come from other sources as well, particularly the Department of Health, because this is something which will save the Department and the HSE huge amounts of money in the future if we get the right funding in place at an early stage.

I have a few short questions, first on the numbers of participants. They mentioned that in Kerry, quite a number of farmers are interested in participating. In other parts of the country, is their experience similar?