Natasha Newsome Drennan (Carlow-Kilkenny, Sinn Fein)

I thank everybody for coming. It was great to meet Brian and Helen this morning.

We visited Albert and David's farm in Malahide. For us as suckler farmers, it was not our typical farm. The thing with social farming is that you do not have to change anything. It does not have to be a pet farm for all the world. It can be anything.

I said to my husband a couple of years ago that he should do this. Before I became a TD, I worked with adults with disabilities for 18 years. I was trying to get him to get involved because I knew how good he was with the people that I worked with. However, he said it was the education bit he would not be able for. It has been said here this morning that there is plenty of support for farmers.

We have heard that it is better to have a 20-mile radius so that people do not travel too far. How do we encourage more farmers to get involved and what has been done in that regard? Have they gone to the marts? Have they done that kind of stuff? A lot of the time, farmers are afraid to get engaged with it because they think it would be more work for them and they have enough work to do already. In fact, the majority of farmers I know in rural areas need this engagement. As Mr. Horgan said, it might just involve picking somebody up and dropping them off to go to a social farm. That might be their only engagement all day. It works both ways, I suppose.

What do farmers get in financial supports? Obviously, there is ongoing support and training throughout. I presume there is a helpline for them, as we were saying this morning. I know from working with adults with disabilities that everything could be going great and just one thing might click. Farmers may be slightly afraid of that, but to know that you have back-up and support would be important.

I think the witnesses are doing amazing work.

We were talking about institutions this morning. With the Brothers of Charity, where I worked, we are trying to get away from institutions. We were moving the houses out so people were not in dormitories any more. There was a farm on the place where I worked. I was not on the farm but I would have dropped one of the men off to the farm. From learning how to do jobs on the farm and caring for the animals, they could then go and work off site. That was the serious achievement. They were beaming because they had a job. It might have only been one day a week, but I thought it was great. Anything I can do to help, I will.