Éamon Ó Cuív (Galway West, Fianna Fail) | Oireachtas source

There are many reasons for the lack of biodiversity. The Minister mentioned some of them, including monoculture. In the past 40 or 50 years, we have turned from the type of farming that included some tillage and sowing of gardens.

Not one farm in the country did not produce its own vegetables and potatoes. On all farms land was tilled and they all had cattle. There is no doubt that monoculture has done a lot of damage.

Deputy Danny Healy-Rae is right in that there is much more rough growth than there was, especially on farms in the west, as the Minister of State, Deputy Kyne, will be aware. Sally and hazel grow on farms. If someone has a farm of 10 ha which is quite sizable in some parts of south Connemara, the irony is that if he or she as much as overclaims on 0.3 ha, he or she will lose three times that acreage in the single farm payment. The penalty is on three times the size of the land if it is more than a figure of 3%.

Some of us are really concerned about the bees and the birds, particularly in the countryside. Farmers are the protectors of the countryside and deeply concerned about nature. I have not met many farmers who do not deeply care about it. Farming grants and systems and market forces have forced them out of the type of farming in which they have traditionally engaged which was totally friendly towards all of the concerns expressed.

There was a meeting in our constituency which the Minister of State could not make because he was in Dublin. It was attended by 203 people and about roads. A constant complaint made at the meeting was about hedgecutting. There was a recent report that indicated that seven of the worst accident black spots on national roads were on the N59 between Clifden and Leenaun. I was talking to a local in Kylemore about the worst of all roads in the country and asked where exactly it was, trying to pinpoint the actual spot. He told me and said that if the hedges were cut, it might ameliorate the problem.

I would like to bring to the attention of the Minister a problem in County Kerry, where I had a bad accident, as well as in counties Cork, Galway and so on. When the summer comes and tourists arrive, they tend to drive closer to the middle of the road than we tend to do because we know of the dangers. A significant peril is cars coming towards you, close to the middle of the road, because the drivers are trying to see around the corner and take a chance in moving out to the centre of the road, whereas we know that one's best chance is to stay in. The big risk is hitting a pedestrian, but it is the lesser of two evils because at least one can pull out, but if there is a car in the middle of the road, one cannot pull in.

I want to be calm in what I am saying. As far as I am concerned, what happened amounted to bad faith on the part of the Government. I am not saying on the part of the Minister personally but the Government as a collective. Under the Constitution, the Government is a collective, not a group of individuals. I say it was bad faith on the part of the Government because the original proposal brought to the Seanad by the then Minister, Deputy Humphreys, on behalf of the Government led by Deputy Enda Kenny was, as the officials present will be able to confirm, to allow hedgecutting on eight grounds in the month of August. Fianna Fáil was not happy with the proposal in the Seanad and I drafted an amendment for Fianna Fáil Senators that stated seven of them were unnecessary. They were undesirable ecologically, but we should retain the ability to cut the outside hedge because road safety issues are involved. I will come to why the Minister's solution will not work in practice.

If one checks the Official Report of the debate in the Seanad, one will see that the Government voted against the amendment but that all other parties voted for it. The Bill passed through the Seanad with the Fianna Fáil amendment. It covered a square field and if it was of a different shape, one might take off even more. It was also passed by the Dáil. We conducted the operation in good faith and our understanding was that the Government wanted to allow cutting on eight sides but that we had stopped it from doing so, changing the number of grounds to one, on which there was consensus in the Dáil where I do not think the Government opposed it. I think there was a reasonable expectation that the regulations would be implemented. The biodiversity groups which were not happy about it from the beginning then managed to persuade the Minister to ignore the clear understanding and consensus reached in the Oireachtas. The Bill having been passed, everyone understood the Minister would bring forward regulations, but now she has undermined it again, which amounts to very sharp practice by the Government. Those who had been in government and knew the history should have pointed this out because the Minister might not have been aware of it. Unlike us, she had not sat through it all.

What is the difference in what the Minister has told us people can do? I read it as meaning I can cut any hedge I want to in Cornamona where the roads are very narrow and there are many corners. I defy anybody to win a court case against me. Certainly, in summer time if one cuts the outside of a hedge on the boreen up to my house, nobody will interfere because there is no part of it that does not have a bend.