Mr. Patrick Kent:

They do not work nine to five. They work 80 or 100 hours a week when it is required. They adjust to the seasons and do the work as it is needed. Being restricted by date systems, like with slurry spreading, has not worked. Farmers have been told to spread slurry when conditions were not suitable just because it was a specific date.

It has not worked. As with the hedge cutting, there needs to be flexibility. Just because the date is fixed, every hedge cutter in the country will not go out and work those few weeks extra. It would allow them the flexibility to do the work in an appropriate manner at a time that suits and to suit their workload. By spreading the hedge cutting it would allow the birds to adapt and there would be less blanket hedge cutting and so on. Flexibility and common sense are needed. I compliment the three gentlemen here on their common sense. That is why they have been elected.

There has been a big focus on emissions, hot air, gasses and global warming but nothing at all is being mentioned about sequestration and the fact that the pastures of Ireland are sequestering far more carbon due to specific animals.