Mr. Martin O'Halloran:

I thank Senator Comiskey and other members of the committee for recognising and welcoming the value of knowledge transfer groups because this is one of the strategic differences in the direction in which we are going.

On the grant scheme, we do not influence this but we will bring the observations made to the attention of the officials in the Department of Agriculture, Food and the Marine who may be able to influence any future schemes.

Mr. Higgisson dealt with the issue of feedback and the information we get from this. Fear of an inspection is not something we wish to see. Over recent years, the manner of our direction has been very positive, supportive and advisory. We want it to be a collaborative approach and we will continue with this as a specific objective.

I also wish to recognise the observation of the Chairman and note that we share his concerns about young drivers who are relatively inexperienced being in control of a very large load. The entitlement of young drivers on farms to drive on-farm without any age restrictions and on-road is a concern for us. We are engaging in discussions with our colleagues in the Road Safety Authority on this. Just this week, I had discussions with Moyagh Murdoch, my counterpart in the Road Safety Authority, on how we might reflect our concerns about these types of issues.