Mr. Andrew St. Ledger:

Reference has been made to the fencing issue and to the problems faced by people living with restrictions. I think there needs to be flexibility and more understanding. There also needs to be more joined-up thinking between agencies. That is another problem for the National Parks and Wildlife Service, the Department of Agriculture, Food and the Marine and the forest service. It is linked to the call for a forestry task force.

In order to comply with the nitrates directive, some 16,000 km of fencing is being paid for under GLAS to keep cattle away from watercourses. If it had been decided that this fencing should be set 3 m or 4 m back - this can still be done as part of an approach that features joined-up thinking - such areas could be planted with mixed native trees which have deep root systems that give them the ability to absorb runoff. This would help the situation while also creating a resource for farmers. It has been mentioned that we are not really doing anything with the 400,000 km of hedgerow and scrub in this country. We are not valuing it. People are cutting it. It is being heaped up in piles to be burnt, with no benefit to anybody. In Austria and France, farmers are working co-operatively to manage hedgerow resources and collect all of this material to use locally. This feeds into local economic resilience.

There is a need to start looking at problems and finding solutions. For example, 16,000 km of fencing being funded to satisfy a nitrates directive is a knee-jerk reaction. Rather, we should consider using that money to create linear woodlands or ecological corridors. As I indicated to the Minister of State at the Department of Agriculture, Food and the Marine, Deputy Doyle, at a forest policy group meeting, such ecological corridors linking rivers which have to be protected in any event would be of benefit in terms of biodiversity, climate and carbon. It has been scientifically proven that our native trees have natural abilities which can be managed by and become a resource for farmers when they have been given some training. Rather than it being a problem of having to fence the rivers, that solution would confer a benefit and help local economies. We need to be look at more flexible arrangements such as that.