Agriculture Supports
Seanad Éireann — 2026-02-10
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Martin Heydon (FG), Kildare South

I am leaning back into the personal element again. Happily, my wife and I continue to farm at home with four young children. I am passionately of the view that my daughter, who is only in junior infants, has every bit as much of an opportunity to inherit that farm as any of her three brothers. They will have an equal opportunity and it will depend on whoever displays the most interest in and passion for agriculture and farming. That is where we need to get to. That is why there are measures we can take. Having ambassadors will allow people to see it and be it. We need more female participation. That participation is there. I know of situations, as the Senator does, whereby the female, perhaps the wife of the husband farmer, is an integral part of the farming system and no big management decision is made on the farm without her input. It is very much a partnership. However, because her name does not appear anywhere on a piece of paper, she does not exist in the eyes of my Department. That is wrong. Those are the types of issues we want to address. We can take practical measures that will highlight the role that women farmers play and encourage more participation into the future.
I look forward to working with the Senator and colleagues on that.

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Record URI: https://data.oireachtas.ie/akn/ie/debateRecord/seanad/2026-02-10/debate/main
Retrieved: 2026-08-14T04:54:36+00:00
Sitting date: 2026-02-10