Ms Oonagh Duggan:

I will respond to the question about degradation of hedgerows and the use of environmental assessment tools. Ms Donaghy will respond to the other elements of that question. There is no law to protect hedgerows. They are protected by proxy under the Wildlife Act and by regulations relating to agriculture such as the environmental impact assessment, EIA, regulations relating to restructuring of land holdings, where linear features in the landscape are protected. However, the thresholds when it comes to those EIAs are really high. A landowner does not have to seek EIA screening from the Department of Agriculture, Food and the Marine until a certain threshold is met so we do see quite an amount of hedgerows falling through the cracks in those regulations. We are calling for a bespoke law to protect hedgerows. Under the Wildlife Act, restrictions aimed at protecting breeding birds mean that there is no cutting or burning of vegetation allowed between 1 March and 31 August. Quite a number of bird species use hedgerows which is where the protection comes into play. They are so important in the landscape and we would like to see a law protecting hedgerows in their own right, especially some of the older hedgerows. Some are hundreds of years old or more. They are not the same as young hedgerows.