Eamon Ryan (Dublin Bay South, Green Party) | Oireachtas source

I move amendment No. 20:

In page 12, to delete lines 8 to 13 and substitute the following:“(2) Notwithstanding section 40 of the Act of 1976, the Minister may make regulations to provide for derogations from the restrictions of section 40(1) of the Act of 1976 in order to permit the management of vegetation growing in any hedge or ditch for the purpose of ensuring public health and safety pursuant to section 70 of the Roads Act 1993.

(3) Regulations made under subsection2 shall specify—

(a) the species of wild flora which are not subject to the derogations,

(b) the circumstances of risk and the circumstances of time and place under which such derogations may be granted,

(c) the authority empowered to declare that the required circumstances obtain and which can impose conditions on the management of vegetation under the derogation,

(d) the controls which will be put in place to ensure compliance with the conditions.”.

We are moving from the mountaintops down to our fields and the hedgerows between them which are of critical importance in the protection of the country's biodiversity particularly for birdlife. I will not go through all the various reports. I reiterate the point made in our earlier Committee Stage discussion. We are in an ecological crisis with the loss of biodiversity across the country and across the world which requires urgent action. In effect maintaining the status quois not a viable option; we need to engage in a range of new initiatives to protect wildlife which is being lost at a frightening rate. I wish we had a Bill before us where all the stakeholders were brought in to consider how we develop our hedgerows, how we make them safe definitely for road users, but also how we use them in a way that promotes good farming practice that protects wildlife, improves tourism amenities and provides structural supports around a field.

Instead we have this very simple and confusing freeing up of the regulations to allow for cutting on the basis of a judgment of someone who owns a field. We think it will add to further confusion and further threat and stress to Irish wildlife, particularly certain bird species which are still nesting in the hedges in August. We do not believe that the provision that someone cutting the hedgerow would see if there is a nest would work. We do not believe the National Parks and Wildlife Service has the resources to police this in any effective way. The approach is completely wrong. It should look at a new management strategy for hedgerows rather than weakening existing regulations and adding further confusion to what is a very uncertain system of protecting that ecosystem.

Our amendment is simple in that it replaces the key section in page 12 of the Bill with allowance for regulations giving the local authorities real control. They would decide if a hedge needed to be cut back for road-safety reasons and would set out the regulations and approach, rather than having a free-for-all which is the direction the Bill proposes. I ask the Minister to change tack even at this late stage. We need to be proactive in protecting wildlife, not loosening regulations and allowing for more widespread destruction of habitat, which is the last thing we need to be doing.