Mr. Martin Stapleton:

Yes. It ties in perfectly with Deputy Neville's question. Dairy, horticulture, pigs and poultry are the sectors that have the opportunity to grow their businesses. There is a different skill set required and a different level of skills shortages. Deputy Neville asked about dairy farming and referred to it being the backbone or his constituency. Up until 1 January 2015, there was a milk quota. For 30 years there was no increase in demand and a good deal of potential built up in the system. Over the past three years, we have seen that potential used up. We have gone from capacity to a deficit of skilled workers. It is not new. The Minister for Agriculture, Food and the Marine has set up a working group under Tom Moran to see how the skills shortage can be rectified. It put in place a pilot project which operated in Kilkenny. The last I heard five people have been taken off the live register. Its aim was to take people off the live register and train them to milk cows. I am not sure if the people who are on the live register right now have the potential, skills or interest in taking up milking cows as a career. As farmers, we are interested in taking on workers and building a career for them in our businesses but we have to take into account that we have significant challenges as employers. Much of our work is seasonal. In dairy farms, it is around calving and breeding time. Where crops are growing, whether grain or horticulture crops, the big demand is around harvest time so it is seasonal. It is the nature of farming. By and large, it is a low-margin business, which means many of our employers struggle to match minimum wage requirements. They have to try to match the employment they can offer with their ability to pay for it. There is more work available to people than our businesses generate the capacity to pay for. We have to manage and balance that. The type of skills shortage we have is on two levels. It occurs with the general operatives who do the basic work on a daily basis and within that there is relief work. There are farmers who end up working 80 or 90 hours a week at busy times. It is a challenge from a health and safety point of view. It is also a challenge from an animal welfare point of view to make sure there is enough capacity to get those animals managed. That is one side of it. There is a shortage that is starting to impact on the potential of the business to achieve what it can for us as farmers and for the economy.

With regard to the issue of apprenticeships, there will be a shortage of future managers and business owners and we need to have a roadway for those people. The first step is to create apprenticeships, to find a way of assessing farmers and to treat them as potential trainers for the future so that when new people go on to farms run with really good, efficient, modern technology, they will come out after one, two or three years with a certificate or qualification to show what they have done. It will provide those people with a pathway to go on to become farm managers, assistant farm managers or business owners. That is the way we can develop dairy farming to its maximum potential. There is the potential for 6,000 jobs to be created in our business in the next five or six years.