Mr. Michael Curran:

I thank the Senator for his questions. Mr. Keane is right; we are a rural youth organisation. We are agri-focused because one third of our members are active farmers. We need to see rural Ireland being sustainable because the cohort we represent are the young people populating rural Ireland. The word "sustain" has been hijacked by many people and it is being used incorrectly. Sustainable, from our perspective, means it is capable of regenerating itself. That is why the family farm is so important, as Deputy Carthy mentioned. If we go towards massive industrial-sized agriculture like in Saudi Arabia, the US and South America, we are reducing the number of people working on farms because of the economies of scale. It will be about extracting the most production out of the most land and, with respect, to hell with everything else.

We come at this from a societal perspective. We are still a rural society in this country. We have a grá for the land that we cannot and should not leave. We all come from the land. You do not have to go back too many generations to see that. Looking around this room, I know I am speaking to people who understand exactly what I am saying and that the committee gets it. If we were to leave farming as it is going and continue to exclude young farmers from coming into the industry, we are not far away from 30% aged over 70 at this stage and we are four years away from that becoming 30% over 75. I know 70 is the new 60 and 60 the new 50 etc., but there has to be reason to this. From a societal perspective, unless we support young farmers, who are the centre of rural Ireland, to come into the industry, we are going to see rural Ireland die. On whose watch will that be, is the only question I have.