Ms Elaine Houlihan:

As a rural organisation catering for people between the ages of 17 to 35, keeping young people in agriculture is our priority. As Dr. Hanrahan already alluded to, we were quite disappointed to see the budget cut for agriculture. Of course, the import of fruits and vegetables is an issue. It is another competitor and it is in every sector there. Our biggest issue when it comes to producers in Ireland is the cost associated with it. That is one of the biggest things. The labour shortage is another issue facing our growers in Ireland. As we said at the start, there is a limited number of people in this sector.

Access to land is a huge part of that as well as is, as we said, diversification. There are loads of challenges facing us but this is something we need to overcome and which the Government needs to assist us in overcoming. I will hand over to Dr. Hanrahan who will go into more detail as regards the biodigesters and may provide his view on keeping young people in the sector as well.