Michael Fitzmaurice (Roscommon-Galway, Independent) | Oireachtas source

The reason it is not working is that if a farmer is getting land ready to be ploughed at the back end of September, some of the land is marginal and wet in the latter months of the year. In August, however, one has a better chance to have a hedge cut. If one were to try to cut a hedge now, one would not be able to bring a tractor into the land. At this time of year a farmer has to put down a flail or a saw head on a six or eight-tonne excavator. If not, they will not come out of the field. We have to get the work done a few weeks earlier for the simple reason that one has a better chance - not always but generally - of having drier land in August. There is an old saying in the countryside, "March brings breezes, loud and shrill, to stir the dancing daffodil". In March there is also a better chance the land will dry out quicker.