Matt Carthy (Cavan-Monaghan, Sinn Fein) | Oireachtas source

It is great to have our guests here. They are very welcome. Dr. Moore has scrubbed up well since we last met on a wet, miserable day in the Chairman's constituency. It is good to see Ms Clerkin as passionate as ever about her areas of interest. I am excited about this conversation because I think there is great potential to address many of the challenges the committee deals with if we get hedgerow strategy right. It is probably the easiest thing our farmers can do to resolve some of the other big challenges we talk about, such as water quality, carbon emissions and biodiversity issues, while also being able to continue farming, which is obviously very important to them. The witnesses have dealt very well with the benefits of having good hedgerows in place. One issue I am not sure if they have touched on, and maybe there is a reason for that, is soil quality on adjoining fields. Are adjoining fields impacted by a wide span of hedgerows?