Ms Alice Doyle:

I will give a combined answer for all the members, while Ms Roche will take the specific question around substance abuse on farms, etc. On the first issue, the common thread is the great way of life it is on a farm. It is a great way of life if you can make an income but, unfortunately, the problem, as all the members have identified, is all the stressors resulting from not being able to make an income. The main cause for not having that income, which most of the farmers would identify, is the burden of regulation forcing them to have huge input costs, which reduces their income at the end of the day. Until we can reach some stage of simplification to reduce that burden on farmers, it is going to be very difficult for farmers to make an income. All the signs coming from the EU are not looking good on simplification for Irish farmers because we are not big farmers but we are a little bit bigger than the average European farmers when it comes to simplification. That is a huge burden for us, looking down the way.

In regard to the irregular hours that farmers have, we can clock in and clock out, but we rarely clock out. That is the problem. Darragh McCullough had a good article this week in the Irish Independent. I do not always agree with him but this week he had a good article. He stated that the average farmer is very lucky if he or she can get 34 days a year off, out of 365 days, and that includes Sundays, whereas the average worker gets 163 days a year off. That highlights the burden of being tied to the farm. We can take a little time off but we cannot afford to take it off, and that is the problem.

The delayed payments are a huge issue. That is again a common thread among all the members. I would throw it back to them and ask them, as Members, to put immense pressure on the Minister of agriculture and the Department in particular, so that when they are designing any more schemes, they ensure they are designed with the farmer in mind, with an income for the farmer, not bureaucracy and not designed on a laptop that has no relation to day-to-day living on the farm. If the committee could take back that message alone, it would be a great message to take back from us as farmers.

In regard to social farming, no doubt Deputy Newsome Drennan is aware there is a very good social farmer close to where she lives. We have visited his farm on numerous occasions and it is a wonderful place to go to. We bring people with special needs there to give them relief. By going to visit his farm as an active farmer, I actually got a little bit of relief myself to see the way he looks after his clients. I wish to God we could do the same for all our farmers.

Ms Roche will take the question on substance abuse.