Mr. Joseph McCrohan:

The Department of culture funding is core to us because we need to employ facilitators to go out to meet farmers and keep the farmers that are involved already. We have 40 farmers involved in Kerry so the heat is on us more than any other county because of the volume of what we are doing. Our project is bigger on a county-wide basis than anywhere else. We need to have those facilitators on the ground to mind, educate, bring forward and make the farmers we have better, but also find new farmers so we can take people off our waiting lists.

We go after everyone for money. We have a sister programme that works alongside Kerry Social Farming with funding through the Minister, Deputy Foley’s Department, namely, the school leavers programme. That is individualised funding. Some people with disabilities are receiving funding towards that. We have care workers working with South Kerry Development Partnership and they are putting people on farms. That is an operation in Kerry. It is the only place in the country where this is in operation. It is in operation because of our proven track record of long-term placements and commitment to social farming.

Kerry Dairy Ireland is absolutely delighted to give us funding because it sees the performance of our project. We are glad to work in partnership with such a professional organisation that has social responsibility at its core. Not only does it help us to identify new farmers, but it also gives us money.

We go after everyone to get money. We receive €100,000 per year, but we need to double that because we need to get double the number of participants out of farms. We want to have 100 farmers in Kerry Social Farming in five years’ time. I have no doubt about it. Social farming is built on the same principles as the GAA; namely, volunteering and people giving their time to others for the betterment of the wider community in a local capacity. It goes on as long as it goes on. We do not tell anyone what to do. We try to keep it going, as long as the participants want to and their care workers and the services they attend are happy and feel it is the right thing for that person. We continue on that basis. They are free to move onto something else if they wish. We are not holding people on farms or anything like that.