Dr. Maura Farrell:

I thank the Senator. Those are some key ideas. For us, in driving this kind of an agenda it is a disappointment that there are not women on this agriculture committee when we are trying to represent those women and make sure they have a voice. However, it is not unusual. We have found this in many scenarios, where women are not represented in those agricultural communities and within those farm representative bodies, particularly at a level where their voice can be heard. That is something we would like to pressurise or in some way encourage at this very high level where we can see and for it to filter down to other organisations and committees along the line.

FLIARA is an EU-funded project. I am not sure if many on the committee have heard of Horizon Europe. It is funded by the EU Commission. FLIARA is a €3 million project which we are leading in Galway. I am the co-ordinator of the project and Dr. Murtagh and Ms Weir are both working on it with me in Galway. We have 15 partners across ten countries in Europe and we are leading-out on it. We are taking this exceptionally seriously from an Irish perspective as well as from an EU perspective. It is an agenda the European Commission is driving. It is driving it from a policy level in the context of our CAP strategic plans. It has put forward this idea of gender within the CAP strategic plans. Our project is looking at the innovative practices of women in agriculture and in rural areas. As part of that, we carried out 200 interviews across Europe of which 30 have been in Ireland. They are in the booklet the Senator just produced a moment ago which shows the 30 women we have interviewed in Ireland, of whom half are driving innovative practices within and on farms. We picked those women from an economic, cultural or social perspective that they might have a non-farm diversification. As we started to analyse our results, we started to see that while it may be an environmental project, these women were also having an impact on society. They were having a cultural or economic impact. Therefore we started to look at these women and see the value they were adding not only to the farm itself and its income but also to the broader rural community. We are leaving behind the idea of, perhaps, constantly harping on about the challenges these women have but rather looking at what these women can bring to farms and rural areas.

Looking at the booklet, it shows the number of initiatives these women are involved in, many of whom we have interviewed. In the wool industry, Blátnaid Gallagher in Galway has come forward with some huge ideas about Galway wool. Teresa Roche is an organic farmer, also in Galway, who has brought forward cheese making. We have a wonderful girl in Limerick, Eadaoin O'Connell who has 2 acres of land on which she has set up her on equine social farming industry.

I could go on and on about the number of women who have added huge value. We are coming at this from this from the perspective that these women are adding value. They are not women who are challenged and whom we need to help in some way. We need to overcome the barriers but we also need to support them for the value they can bring to rural areas.