Paraic Brady (Fine Gael)

I too want to throw my support behind everything the witnesses do. Mr. Smyth and Ms Doherty are only down the road from where I come from. I come from a place called Drumlish in County Longford. We have a host family there. A good friend of mine, Donie McLoughlin, is one of the farmers who goes out there. Caoimhín McEoin in Colmcille does great work for them on the ground. Something our colleagues touched on was how we will to have to look at the model where it has to be funded across Departments – education, health, rural affairs and disability services. All those Departments have a hand to play in funding this. It can be rolled out nationwide. I think the witnesses said they have 200 host farmers there now, or 165 up to 200. Personally, after today I would like to get involved in this scheme, just going by the work outlined in the literature. It is a wonderful initiative. We have St. Christopher day service in Longford. I cannot emphasise how much work it does in the community in Longford. I am sure it is part of the whole social farming and that social aspect of it too. Any day you can have anybody out in the fresh air, no matter whether, as Deputy Aird says, it is picking berries or gathering eggs and going inside, boiling the egg and seeing how food is produced, is great. It is the whole aspect of it. There is an educational side to this too. It educates people to respect the farmer, the food, where it comes from and everything else. It is the whole package.

There are a couple of things I will throw at the witnesses. On my farm, I have public liability and employer's liability insurance. I am sure any of the host farmers will have to have employer's liability and public liability. Will the witnesses touch on that? Before a host farmer qualifies, I am sure there is some inspection or audit regarding health and safety and so on. What are the ins and outs of the insurance end of things?

The witnesses said it was one day a week but it can be longer, I am sure.