Tom Hayes (Tipperary South, Fine Gael) | Oireachtas source

I have limited the exemption from the licensing requirement by excluding trees greater than 3 cu. m in volume. This is a large tree and should remain within the licensing system. It is important to understand that the Bill's primary purpose is forestry, the sustainable management of forests and, in appropriate circumstances, the protection of other important trees in the wider landscape.

I have listened to the concerns raised by environmental stakeholders and will table an amendment to address some of them in so far as that is practical, possible and appropriate to a forestry Bill. However, I must stress that the Bill is not about regulating the alteration or removal of hedgerows in general. Other legislation addresses that issue, in particular the Wildlife Acts and the 2011 European Communities regulation. The qualification in the amendment proposed by the Deputy has also been proposed to me and elaborated upon when my Department consulted the Environmental Pillar and the Woodland League of Ireland.

I presume that Deputy Ferris intended to include the word "significance" in his amendment No. 86. Such a qualification would require the inclusion of a long list of additional criteria by which a landowner could determine whether the tree in question was in hedgerow deemed to be of historical, ecological or landscape significance. I have examined one set of criteria proposed to me by the environmental stakeholders and found them to be unnecessarily complex, subjective in part and likely to place an unwarranted administrative burden on landowners and my Department.

They are also predicated on the assumption that the Bill allows for the removal of hedgerows, which it does not. The amendment that I shall move later sufficiently addresses these concerns in a manner that is more compatible with the existing statutory designations and protection processes used in Ireland for built heritage and the landscape. Therefore, I cannot agree to these amendments.