Oireachtas Joint and Select Committees
Wednesday, 8 October 2025
Joint Oireachtas Committee on Agriculture and Food
Social Farming: Discussion
2:00 am
Mr. Joseph McCrohan:
Because if a person wants to get paid and will not do it unless they get paid, that is alright too if we can find the money to pay him or her. At the end of the day, let the show roll on and make sure the Department puts out the tender next year. They were looking for four pilot projects ten years ago. I think they would want to be looking for 24 or 25 pilot projects with one for every county at this stage of the game. In Kerry we have the biggest number. It is 40 people in a massive county. When you think about it, we need to get to 500 or 1,000 farmers doing this if we really want to keep rural Ireland going. They are there. They are training young fellas, and boys and girls, at all sports across rural Ireland and they will do this.