Joe Flaherty (Longford-Westmeath, Fianna Fail)
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I thank the president and his colleagues for the very informative presentation, as always. I will try not to plough the same ground, if you will excuse the farming cliche. I want to hone in on the land mobility service. To give the president a break, I will direct this question to Mr. Dillon.

We know that succession is not an exclusively Irish issue and that it is an issue right across Europe. Let us call a spade a spade: farming as a career is not the most attractive option. As rightly stated, under the land mobility service approximately 700 arrangements for 140 farms were put in place in 2020. The scheme has, undoubtedly, been very successful. It was mentioned that there are 30,000 farm families. One of the challenges to date in terms of the mobility service is that success has been very much regionalised. If one is to be truthful that is because the most - I am loath to say profitable - viable farms are in those regions. If one goes to the west, it is a harder sell. In terms of the research, we know that some of those 30,000 farms will never come up with succession plans. Realistically, what are the numbers for, say, the next five years? Assuming €1.5 million in funding is secured, based on the current numbers and what we see in terms of profitability, how many of those farms will transition to the next generation? We are seeing large-scale acquisition of lands as well. I ask Mr. Dillon to set out what would happen to the landscape if the €1.5 million came into play.