Ms Norma Rohan:

The case in which that particular widow was fined by the Department happened a couple of years ago. It was addressed at the time, when Deputy Coveney was the Minister in charge. The examples I gave in my opening statement illustrate the issues we have encountered with families.

With regard to 16-year-olds and 17-year-olds, as a mother, I will ask who wants to see a 16-year-old up on a tractor with a big piece of machinery attached to the back of it? I do not believe anyone thinks that is right. God love the 16-year-old or 17-year-old. I am sure that is where he or she wants to be but there should be adequate precautions and regulations in that area. Again, it is up to the Department and legislators to address that. These are the Houses that make that kind of legislation.

With regard to the EIPs, the €300,000 we are about to receive is for one year. However, I believe that the Minister would say that there will be further road for a number of those projects at the end of those 12 months. I am not too sure what that means at this point. We are putting a little bit of that €300,000 in funding aside to look at the sustainability of the project to ensure we can fund it for year 2 and year 3. It provides one-on-one support for farm families and mentors and helps them through a process of grieving and some practical issues. There is a fine line as to how much advice we can give when mentoring widows and others as to how to deal with the issues they are facing. We want to look at that. We currently provide peer-to-peer support. Before Covid, we held residential weekends. We hope to get back to them in the springtime. We bring a number of families together. These groups may comprise a number of widows or a number of farm families where children have lost their dad or a sibling. While Embrace FARM facilitates these meetings of people and families and while a trained psychotherapist is also involved, those families help each other and tell each other their stories. They become their own support network. Since the start of the Covid pandemic, most of our stuff has gone online. We are doing as best as we can online but there is nothing like meeting in person. We have very active WhatsApp groups involving survivors of farm accidents. We also have a widows' group.