Joanne Collins (Sinn Fein)
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I thank the Cathaoirleach. He stole my line. It is great to hear about our witnesses meeting the farmers at the marts. Farmers are very sociable and the social side of it is a lot of what helps that helps them. I had a farmer on to me last week. He has a quad bike and he had an inspection on his farm. He got a bit of a grilling saying he had to have a licence and had to do a course. He was very worried about this, and questioning how and where he was going to do it. I am sure Teagasc does this already, but is there a way for farmers to engage in training at the marts where they are comfortable in their own environment and not on their own? Some farmers are straight down the line. For them, everything has to be according to the way it should be and others are a little bit more lax. One person might not need that but the neighbour is under stress and pressure thinking about it.

Second, the filling out of forms seems to be a big issue that really burdens farmers. We have mygov.ie and welfare.ie. Why not have a farm.ie where everything is online? Many farmers might be in the older age group and not up to speed on technology, but they have sons and daughters and nieces and nephews or a neighbour who might be able to help. Could there be an organisation they could go to where they could go to get these forms done? If we could streamline these services it would take a little pressure off and farmers could go out and enjoy farming and not have to worry about all of this in the background.