Peadar Tóibín (Meath West, Sinn Fein) | Oireachtas source

There are major problems in the farming sector at the moment. The average wage within farming is about half what it is in the industrial sector. Currently about a third of farmers in this State are independently economically viable and much more needs to be done to ensure farming is helped to become more economically viable. I am of the view that it is the price side of the business that needs the most help. Farmers are not getting the value for the work they are doing as it is being taken by other actors in the market.

As Mr. O'Donnell has said, it is disastrous that farmers are being penalised in certain cases where they themselves have no hand, act or part in what has happened on their land. That needs to change. We will try to resolve that with the Department if we can. There is an economic benefit to biodiversity. It is a key element of the functioning of farming that we have a strong biodiversity in order that pollinators, for example, are able to flourish as well as all the other species. In fairness, much degradation has been done to the biodiversity of this country in the past 30 to 40 years. I believe everybody in this room would accept that. Certain species are at a tipping point of existence currently. There needs to be a balance in society in terms of the ability of farmers to function and farm and some level of protection for biodiversity. I accept the point that the fewer restrictions one has the easier it is to function as a farmer. If the opportunity for action is extended the situation will be better.

How big an issue is hedge cutting? I live in the countryside and most of the hedges around me at the moment have not been cut. I am trying to gauge the impetus for this. It seems to me that if this was a massively important issue, the hedges on the roadside would have been cut at the first opportunity, in the first couple of weeks of the current window. We are fighting for the window to be extended even though the window that exists is not being used by many farmers.

How difficult is it to use section 40 the Wildlife Act currently? Do farmers use it to try to cut hedges? When we contacted the Road Safety Authority to ask if the Minister discussed the road safety aspects of the Bill with it, the response was there had been no interaction. That shocked me because if the main thrust of the Bill was road safety, the first people one would go to would be those in the Road Safety Authority. Can we improve the existing measures in terms of road safety and hedges to make it easier for farmers to use them? Would a compromise position allowing farmers to cut hedges along the roadside be good enough or would it have to include all hedges on a farm?