Mr. Seán Finan:

On the Chairman's first point about human connectivity and building human capital, that is the main focus of our organisation. Macra na Feirme is about building life skills and people skills by encouraging people to take part in our activities. The biggest difficulty we face is trying to convince 16 to 20 year olds of the benefits of developing people skills. Sometimes we find that it is only when people reach their thirties that they realise the benefits of acquiring those skills. By that stage, it is too late to get involved with Macra na Feirme. However, there are plenty of other organisations that people can get involved with at that stage.

Reference was made to measuring the benefits of our organisation. It is easier to measure it from a young farmer's point of view because we are delivering on our lobbying work in terms of getting more young farmers onto the land through our land mobility service. We have been working with the Department and working in Brussels to get measures for young farmers included as part of the CAP. Were it not for Macra na Feirme, such measures would not have been included. They were Macra na Feirme proposals which were sent to Europe. They made their way into the Commission's proposals and eventually found their way into the CAP package.

From a rural youth point of view, we do a lot of lobbying work on various issues. I will come back to the queries raised by Senator Marie-Louise O'Donnell in a moment. We are also a charity, a youth work organisation. We are measured by the national quality standards framework so we must measure outputs and outcomes for our work. We are also aligned with the youth strategy.

In terms of funding, we receive a significant level of Government funding in the form of a youth services grant. We also receive membership subscriptions, funding from industry and from the dairy farmer milk levies. In terms of influence on the State, we do a lot of lobbying work. We are a registered lobbying organisation. We also take part in all of the forums that are relevant to young farmers and rural youth. We are members, for example, of the National Youth Council of Ireland, NYCI. In terms of working with other organisations outside the country for people who have left Ireland, we are associated with five nations which includes the young farmers clubs of Ulster, the Scottish and Welsh young farmers and the National Federation of Young Farmers Clubs in England. We hosted a five nations meeting recently where we brought all of those organisations together. We come together on an annual basis. Any members of Macra na Feirme who go to any of those countries can get involved in the equivalent young farmer clubs. Across Europe, we are part of CEJA, which is the European Council of Young Farmers. There are many youth organisations right across the world in which people can get involved.

I will now address some of the points raised by Senator Marie-Louise O'Donnell in terms of what we have done about the issues referred to. On car insurance, we have worked with insurance providers to provide a 15% discount for our members. That is delivering a return for the members of our organisation. We have worked on a variety of issues through our pre-budget submission and our pre-election manifesto. A lot of the issues that we work on are, ultimately, in the hands of elected representatives.

Committee members referred to the fact that 83% of young farmers said they would like the right to bear arms. That finding came from a survey we completed recently. We have not had a discussion within the organisation yet on where we will go with that. It would be a retrograde step to arm farmers. There are other options that we must explore.