Departmental Schemes
Dail Éireann — 2023-10-26
============================================================

Marian Harkin (IND), Sligo-Leitrim

I take what the Minister of State says, but I am talking about greater co-ordination between Departments. The Minister of State at the Department of Health, Deputy Rabbitte, has given an allocation of €200,000 under a HSE service plan for social farming. Although €2 million was requested, in fairness to the Minister of State, she started the process. That is important. Agriculture has come up to the mark, but it is maybe health and social care. Other Departments need to become involved. This has to be a cross-departmental piece.
I am aware of the value of the initiative. Only recently, I visited Quarryfield in Bunnanaddan near Ballymote in County Sligo where Mr. Gerald Doherty and his family, especially his daughter, Kelly, is very involved in delivering these very valuable services to young people who find themselves in the justice system suffering from mental illness and who generally are vulnerable people with disabilities. I am asking that the Minister of State would do everything in her power to try and ensure greater co-ordination with other Departments.

---

Source: Houses of the Oireachtas. Licensed under CC BY 4.0 (https://creativecommons.org/licenses/by/4.0/). The Official Report is revised after first publication; the fetch timestamp below identifies the version quoted.

Record URI: https://data.oireachtas.ie/akn/ie/debateRecord/dail/2023-10-26/debate/main
Retrieved: 2026-08-14T04:52:21+00:00
Sitting date: 2023-10-26