Ms Hannah Quinn-Mulligan:

That is not a problem; I will be quick. On the points raised about TAMS, the idea is to provide a 60% grant for women over the age of 40, but there would be a clause included to make sure it is not abused. There would have to be a formal partnership arrangement in place whereby over a five-year period, the farm would have to be divided 50:50. This is to encourage more male-female partnerships for women over the age of 40 and farming with their husbands, for example. There would be a clause included to make sure it is not taken advantage of.

On education, Ms Kiely O'Connor made a good point about having a ground-up approach in primary schools. Senator Lombard also made a good point about role models. If some of these policies are put in place, younger women will see older women more visibly active on farms. They are currently active but they are not visible. That is a big part of the issue for us.

I refer to agricultural meetings. Three of the women at this meeting have rearranged their milking time. They should have been milking cows at this time. This is major issue for us, which we included in our submission, and needs to be taken into account when agricultural meetings are being arranged, be they farm organisation or Department meetings. I refer to the CAP consultation plan, for example. The Department had three meetings in a row, all of which were held at the exact same time - between 7 and 9 o'clock. A number of women contacted me to say they could not join those meetings because they had a full day at work, they were running around working on the farm, and then had to put their kids to bed or do something to get them ready for school the next day. This should be borne in mind. We should start thinking outside the box on the issue of meetings. Perhaps they could be held on a weekend or in the middle of the day instead.

On behalf of the group, I thank the committee for inviting us. As Senator Lombard said, I hope this is just the first of many more meetings in the future.