Danny Healy-Rae urges €100,000 for social farming expansion

Deputy Hilary. Thank you very much, Paul Hilary, and I want to welcome each and every one of you here today, the Leiton Social Farming Group and the Kerry Partnership Social Farming Group and all the people, the participants, the hosts, the farmers and the parents, you're all very welcome here today. And I want to thank you, Chairman, for facilitating this meeting here today and for inviting the participants in, because I honestly believe that this is very, very important and we know that people have little problems and there's nothing better than going out in the fresh air and going through a farm or having the fresh air and seeing nature at work, maybe a sheep having a lamb or maybe a young fella feeding a lamb with a bottle and cow calving a horse or a pony or a donkey and it can engage people for hours and keep them talking about it and interested. We have, like has been said here, we have many farmers, what we call horse, you know, participating and those people to me are vital for giving their time. It's usually a day a week or maybe a half day a week, whatever the participant wants and like Joe has said and I have to say here because I know them personally, I know that Joe and Eamon Hagen do tremendous work. There's people in Nardcarrie doing the same type of work and we have young Brendan Sullivan here, he's a participant and he's mad about this winter farming and seeing what's happening and he's a great man to work and everything so it has tremendous value and at the present we hear that there's 60 participants and that they need, that they need, that they're looking for more funding, that they need funding for to increase their service and like when you hear Joe Macquarie saying 100,000 and God Almighty we've got spent in different types of projects all around the country. I think this is a very fair-minded ask and we have a great committee here, I have to say this as well and it's, I'm proud of this committee for everyone engages, they're all listening and they all participate and they're all listening to you and we joined as a committee together we'll ask as hard as we can for that 100,000 for free because I believe in you and I see the work that you're doing, I see the value that it has, there's all the ways from Villainsh Island here there's a mother and a daughter and that's a long ways from Dublin but they're here supporting the call for what we're asking here today for another 100,000 euros and that isn't that much when you hear of budgets or whatever 9.4 billion or whatever was given out yesterday we're only looking for a very very small, we're only looking for the change and but honestly they do great work and I suppose Joe, one thing I hear that the farmer or the horse farmer has to go out and bring the participant and bring them home again. If it could be help, would it help if there was a bus service or some kind of a service like that to help it? We use local ink carry, provide what we call a social car model so the farmer if he so wishes he or she wants to go and pick up the participant they can do so and they get their petrol money covered okay so they're not out of pocket so we, and it's a fantastic way to transport people in a car as opposed to putting loads of people from one social grouping into a bus because it can be a certain amount of stigma with that but so we get them to use the local link network and also with the social car model to bring people to and from farms and it's wonderful for a farmer to go and visit the day care centre where these people are coming from because the farmers learn so much about what their background is and if they go to the participants home, they meet the family, they build a relationship with the family and those relationships are the things that carried on. Could I just ask Eamon you as a horse farmer, actually he's my next door neighbour and what, you see the benefits first hand when the participant comes and like how could we enhance things for you as a horse farmer what, what would, well I suppose the first thing Denny and thank you chairman and and welcome to and thank you all for having us here and thank you deputy Leary and all the other deputies and lead from social farming as well. For me I, if to be great if we could get that extra hundred thousand to give all the participants and farmers a chance to do what we are doing and I suppose we get out in the morning and we do our daily work and we we just take what we're doing for granted and to some other job and we do it but I suppose for me the the the hat touching moments was when a participant took part in a video uh through different feedback to our working group and to our project when that girl said like that Denny for social farming she was out in the open she was out in the field she was after the sheep and she was taking responsibility over her own roles and in in the field or in the farm and when she said only for this I'd be in a that world I'd be looking at the four walls at home it it took her mind during the week it broke up whatever she was thinking of during the week she was she had the farm to go on this week she had the farm to look forward to next week and it changed her own her own perspective. Can I just ask you could you see that confidence growing when when I I I suppose I was I was coming to that deputy in in a sense that I saw this girl to go and collect a youngster of mine from school bring him home and do his lessons with him and another thing it opened my eyes was yes they have disabilities uh through no fault of their own but my god what opened my eyes was their abilities to do job and I had another participant another day and when he realized he could do what he'd done from a one-to-one between the participant and the farmer uh he turned to me and I drive him home he said god there's nothing wrong with me he didn't realize that he had dim skills or dim little gifts to do his own jobs and that is so important and it's just tis tis if I'll ever remember the tins I'll do in my life I I will remember and I have many pillars and memories but farm social farming will be up there and working with him and interacting with him deputy chairman could I just say if we'll be letting you back in again now the next time around deputy kenny