Ms Helen Doherty:

It is. We operate across every county in the country. We have had a budget for ten years of €400,000. It is pretty modest, considering we are covering quite a number of counties. We have five regional officers and we are hoping to expand on that this year.

We have probably in the region of 250 farmers altogether engaged in social farming. A small number of those, maybe 20 or something like that, are still in development. We are in the process of running training again, which we are hoping to accredit through Teagasc through its green cert. All of those things are in development for us at present. We are working hand-in-hand with the agricultural sector, and with the Department of agriculture as well, on that.

As for participants, we have supported well over 1,000 people this year to experience social farming. A number of those are repeat participants and are coming every year, or have come for a number of years. Because of the huge variety of people - we do not say that we only accept X, Y and Z - all of our farmers are open to anybody who feels they need the support that can be gained on a farm. People are supported very well on these social farms. Our farmers are trained to support people.

We have supported over 1,000 people and we have provided an economic benefit to all those farmers that are providing that support as well. Just like anybody else who is working in these sectors who provide value to the people they support, the farmers also provide value. You can see that evident all this week on those social farms. For the participants that are coming to those farms, farms are very often a stepping stone for people to move into a different a space as well and to move towards training, employment, and maybe volunteering-----