Malcolm Noonan (Green Party)
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It could. The National Women's Council was here yesterday. There is a whole public discourse and Government commitment around moving towards a public model of childcare and early childhood education. That might present opportunities.

I will raise another area of interest. I am looking at the nature restoration element of it and farming and whether there are opportunities for young Traveller men and boys to get involved in farming apprenticeships or programmes through the agricultural colleges. We are facing a huge challenge in farming in terms of succession, but also land abandonment and lack of skilled labour on farms. As I mentioned here last week, we will be embarking on a national nature restoration plan. A huge amount of work needs to be done on the ground, including land management, management of invasive species, deer culling and all of these important pieces of work. I would love to see whether a connection could be made into programmes, such as the deer culling programme, or the management of grasslands and woodlands.

We are involved in a scything project in Kilkenny, which is just concluding this evening, where we are baling the hay. The young Traveller men involved in that really took to the project. Given the significant labour demands that are there from work like that, a connection with the agricultural colleges, the NPWS and other programmes could potentially be an area of interest to look at.