Seán Canney (Galway East, Independent) | Oireachtas source

From listening to the debate and from my agricultural background, I note there is a view that there will be widespread, out-of-control burning of gorse. Burning is part of the rotational sequence associated with keeping a good farm. My brother has hedges and stone walls. The stone walls are not good enough to give shelter so there are hedges along them. They have to be pruned, thickened and made windproof. The only way this can be done is by cutting from time to time in such a way as to create a proper hedge. This helps the wildlife. Around Galway, from where I come, the farmers are the custodians of nature. The farmers probably understand nature better than anybody because they understand its importance and why there must be a balance in everything one does. Therefore, I am happy enough that the Bill reflects what is required.

Having been a member of the county council in Galway for 12 or 13 years before I had the honour of being elected to the Dáil, I noted the issue of hedge trimming not being carried out arises all the time. I remember councillors saying on one occasion that the problem was so bad that one did not need to go to a car wash to wash one's car because one could do it along the side of the road. All the foliage was coming out on top of one. It is not really the hedges but the grass and other foliage. It is just the verges. The growth is not being back because there is a very confined time in which cutting is allowed.

We have a multitude of local roads on which two cars cannot pass if they meet each other. We have to be able to travel along these roads. Deputy Danny Healy-Rae mentioned cycling and walking. These are also issues. The problem is that one sees verge trimming occurring in the depths of winter, in the shortest days of the year and at a time when there is very little light during the day. There is a health and safety issue. There is legislation that stipulates verges can be cut for safety reasons. If so, we should be cutting the verges all year round. We should not have legislation preventing it. It is a health and safety issue. I do not see foliage along any road being cut every year or twice per year. Usually the verges are cut every two to three years, by rotation, around the country.

I listened to what Mr. Fogarty said. It is not that I am dismissing anything he said but I believe that the farming community ultimately has a considerable role to play. Sometimes we take all these matters to a point that is counter-productive. I saw this with flooding when I was responsible for the OPW. There are certain things we cannot do to clean channels and rivers, and there are certain things we cannot do to keep water flowing. What happens is that we create floods that empty septic tanks. Tanks, including oil tanks, burst and destroy the environment. Lough Funshinagh in Deputy Michael Fitzmaurice's constituency looks like a nuclear bomb landed on it. All nature has been stripped out of it; there is no wildlife there because of pollution from flooding. We have to be very careful when following rules and regulations.

One of the biggest reasons we have so much flooding on the Shannon is that we have never done any kind of channel cleaning or maintenance. If we continue on that road with everything else in this country, we will end up with a situation where farmers will not be farming, we will not be able to exist in rural areas and we will have to push more and more people into towns and cities. Farmers are the custodians of nature and rural life. They are responsible, and I am aware of that from my own experience. We need to work together to make sure we protect the environment and that we do so in a practical and pragmatic way. I do not have any questions. The submissions are very good and informative and I appreciate the fact that the witnesses have taken time out to come before the committee.