Ms Alma Jordan:

I will start with some of the questions asked by Deputies Lawless and Cooney. Regarding marts, Carnew mart in County Wexford reached out to me a couple of years ago to do an event for kids there. Between 9 a.m. and 1.30 p.m., we had 750 children who came in on a staggered basis. They did a 40-minute session with me on farm safety. They went on then and learned a little bit about how a mart works. They were bidding, vetting and having great craic and, importantly, learning enterprise. They went on and did a bit around tractor safety and mental health and well-being. George Graham was there from Awareness Head to Toe. After getting a goodie bag, they got on the bus and went home. The next group was then coming through. It is so easy and effective. I was there, along with representatives of the IFA and Carnew mart. FBD gave some prizes for the goodie bags, as did the Irish Farmers' Journal. It was the sector working together. This point is key. Everything is out there, it just needs to be packaged correctly.

Turning to tractor driving, I have long said that we need - I have spoken about this on radio - competency-based testing before a 16-year-old gets into a 30-tonne tractor and trailer. End of story. I am never going to be okay with children in this context.

There is no point in raising the age. As it is, nine-year-olds, ten-year-olds and 11-year-olds are being given access to this machinery. The rules are that the 16-year-old gets a provisional licence and then he or she gets experience over a six-month period. They are driving the tractors legally since they were 14 years old. They have had the experience. Now we must get them to a certain standard so we at least can have some kind of appreciation that who is on the road has every right to be there. There are some kids that are pretty good drivers, I will give them that, so let us award those who can actually do it.

With regard to my funding, I had nothing in the early days. I actually reached out to the sector and engaged with different corporates. If they profited from farming and farmers' produce, they had a corporate social responsibility to give that money back in. I approached various insurance companies. Flogas has been with me now for the last five years supporting the work I do. At the moment it is working out at €2 per child so I was able to bring a farm safety workshop to them. There are some 3,500 primary schools within Ireland. I also go into pre-schools. If three-year-olds and four-year-olds are very verbal and capable of talking about cattle, shearing sheep, dosing sheep, worming dogs and everything else, they are perfectly capable of getting this information. I have the structure. I have the programme. I just need the resources to get it. I am lucky to be under the umbrella of Irish Rural Link so now I am in a position where I have the structure to scale up and grow what I have done. I have been in Europe, in America and in Northern Ireland but I created this for Ireland first and foremost. I just need help and support to get it out there. We need core funding to help us to get the job done.

On media, I always see it as a wasted opportunity. Why are farming ads not shown with each of the weather forecasts? That is the one time in my house when we are all told to shut up so they can hear what the weather is. They will not be fast forwarding, they will not be pausing and they will not be leaving the room or looking at their phones. They are engaged. That is what we need. Completely. We have it there. It takes just a little bit of common sense, dare I say, to get the message out there.

On tractor driving being taught in transition year, I am reminded that in America they have driver education in schools. Why do we not have tractor driving education for transition year students? This would be something they can bring with them as they get into the next phase. We would have a whole wonderful league of farmers ready to tackle silage season, hay season, harvest season and every other season around it.