Mr. James Walsh:

A herbicide, also known as a weedkiller, is defined by law as a pesticide. All herbicides, insecticides and fungicides, as well as moss killers and slug killers, both amateur and professional, are defined by law as pesticides and also referred to as plant protection products, PPPs. There is legislation in place for pesticide use to protect the health and safety of members of the public and to protect the environment and animals. The main Irish legislation concerning the control, marketing and supply of pesticides is SI 155 of 2012. The main European legislation on pesticides are regulation (EC) No. 1107/2009 and directive 2009/128/EC. The pesticide control division, PCD, and the pesticide registration division at the Department of Agriculture, Food and the Marine are responsible for enforcing these regulations.

Article 12 of SI 155 of 2012 states that no person shall apply a pesticide in areas used by the general public. Alternative measures must be prioritised. Only registered users can consider using a pesticide with documented evidence to state why any other measures would not work and there must be a risk management system in place, including warning signs.

Article 22 of SI 155 of 2012 states that any person who contravenes Article 12 commits a criminal offence and is liable to a class A fine and a court conviction. A copy of the fixed payment notice was included in the supporting documents I sent to the committee. Warnings are given before a fine is imposed. The current fine is €250. The fixed payment notice includes SI 155 of 2021 and asks which Article was contravened.

A letter was sent to all local authorities, including councils and other public bodies, to ensure they comply with SI 155 of 2012. I have a copy of that letter with me. I have highlighted the area of the letter where Article 12 of SI 155 of 2012 is referred to. It states pesticides should not be used in areas used by the general public. It uses the examples of public parks, hospitals, public schools and public playgrounds. It states that alternatives must be prioritised. There must be documented evidence to state why an alternative would not work. A proper risk management system must be in place by way of warning signs. That is repeated in the letter that was sent to all councils in the country.

Many public bodies have made significant improvements by way of reducing or eliminating pesticides in public areas. However, a significant part of public areas are sprayed by private users who are not a part of a public body. Examples include contractors hired by schools or hotels, and other areas used by the general public. Many farmers and residents spray public roadsides for up to a mile either side of a village, on both sides of the road or only one side, where children walk to school or people are walking. Some people who do not have a car are forced to walk or cycle past such areas. Young children have to step in off the side of the road and are forced to stand in pesticides. There are often no warning sides when an area has been sprayed. It takes seven days for a verge or grass to change colour after it is sprayed with pesticides. One cannot tell within the first few days when the spraying was done. It could have been sprayed five minutes or two days earlier. The area could still be wet with glyphosate.

Shopping centres, private car parks, caravan parks, hotels, golf courses, GAA clubs and other sports grounds, swimming pools, health centres and restaurants, industrial estates and business parks, rented accommodation and estate agencies are further examples of public areas that may have been sprayed with pesticides.

I asked the manager of the pesticide control division at the Department of Agriculture, Food and the Marine why this law is not enforced. He told me the Department is understaffed. He agreed with me about Article 12 of SI 155 of 2012. It is illegal to spray public areas with pesticides. A media spokesperson has confirmed this and said that to date, no public body has been brought to court. It is not clear whether or not a private person has been brought to court. Nobody is aware that this regulation, this law, exists outside of the many councils who have been made aware. It has been in existence since last year. The letter to which I referred earlier was sent out to councils in 2021 but outside of councils, nobody knows this law exists.

There are problems with some town councils that are persisting with the use of weedkiller but others have made improvements. Cork City Council, for example, announced in February of this year that it will cut out its use of chemical weedkillers by 100% with immediate effect. Cork County Council roads department has stopped spraying along primary and secondary roads. Some municipal districts, however, still insist on using weedkillers in housing estates and playgrounds. Close to where I live, for example, the roads department has done an excellent job using alternative measures along roads but the department looking after the council estates, which is a different department in the local council, is still spraying pesticides as far as people's front doors and even along the side of the swings in the playground. I have video evidence of that. Many other housing estates in the same town no longer use pesticides, as is the case in many other towns. This raises questions about the willingness of some councillors in some municipalities to comply with current legal requirements and their understanding of the law.

I also received an email from Midleton town council and it stated it wants to use pesticides for another couple of years in public areas, and that it might eliminate it in future years. It is clearly visible there where pesticides are still sprayed on footpaths in strips of 1 m wide along the dual carriageway between Midleton and Little Island and along the water's edge, which is also in violation of section 11 of SI 155 of 2012. It is the same in Dungarvan on the footpaths and close to the water.

A motion was put forward this year to Cork County Council by an east Cork councillor to implement the same policy as Cork City Council and cut out pesticides in public areas by 100 %. It was supported by all councillors but Cork County Council still did not agree to implement it. It stated that Cork city is more urban than Cork county. In my view, a housing estate in a town in Cork county, outside of the city, is the same as a housing estate in the city, and a primary or national road should not be any different to maintain than a dual carriageway. According to section 12 of SI 155 of 2012, if some councils are persisting in this practice they are not currently operating within the statutory requirements of the legislation available.

In cases brought before judges by top lawyers in many courts across the United States, they have proven glyphosate-based weed killers to have directly caused cancer in humans. It is listed by the International Agency for Research on Cancer, IARC, at the World Health Organization as a group 2A carcinogen. The main glyphosate-based pesticide supplier is being sued for more than $1 trillion dollars by more than 125,000 people in the US and is paying out $10 billion in 100,000 settlements. It was announced that glyphosate will be removed from the domestic market in 2023 in the United States. The sale of glyphosate is already banned in many countries, including Fiji, Saudi Arabia and five other countries in the Gulf Cooperation Council, Sri Lanka, Vietnam and Bermuda. Germany, Mexico, France and many other countries are banning glyphosate from 2024. Pesticide use in public areas is already completely banned in many countries, including the Netherlands, Belgium, France, Portugal, Italy, Malta, Austria, and Luxembourg, most of Argentina, most of Canada and most of the United States.

A small percentage of public areas sprayed is invasive species, which includes Japanese knotweed, giant hogweed and a few others. An organic vegetable-oil based alternative called Foamstream is successfully used in many areas in the United Kingdom to eradicate invasive species. It is applied every six weeks when the plants are small to medium in size during growing season.

Private users who spray pesticides are already doing so illegally under section 12 of SI 155 of 2012. In most cases they are not registered, they do not prioritise alternatives, they have no documented evidence to say why alternatives do not work, and they have no risk management system in place by way of leaving warning signs. Public bodies that still spray pesticides in public areas are also doing so illegally, again because they do not prioritise alternatives, they have no documented evidence to say why alternatives do not work, and they have no risk management system in place.

Solutions would include warning signs to be placed in shops selling pesticides to say it is a criminal offence to spray along public roads and other areas used by the public such as caravan parks, schools, playgrounds, sports fields and so on; An Garda Síochána should be able to respond to any contravention, as with any other crime; hiring and training pesticide control wardens might also be an option, similar to a dog warden or traffic warden; all city and county councils should adopt the same policy as Cork City Council to eliminate pesticides in public areas by 100%; and a non-chemical alternative is available to treat invasive species successfully. I thank the committee.