Mr. Paul O'Brien:

Teagasc has worked tirelessly with the farming community and with us on the all-Ireland pollinator plan to produce a booklet on how to manage hedgerows correctly. The trouble is that, with the best will in the world, farmers are using the opportunity to cut the hedges right down. Hedgerows cannot recover from that. Farmers are concerned with profitability and using as much land as possible for pasture to get the dairy industry growing. They want to use every square inch of it. There must be an incentive to restore hedgerows, perhaps as part of the Common Agricultural Policy, CAP, or something like that. We had a discussion outside about a 1,000 acre farm in the countryside. If the farmer were to give back the linear acre, that is, the hedgerows, he would lose two, three or maybe ten acres out of his 1,000. The farmer could not do it. He said it was not profitable enough for him to do that. This is what we are up against. Very few county councils have taken the pollination plan on board and have-----