Oireachtas Joint and Select Committees
Thursday, 12 May 2022
Committee on Public Petitions
Consideration of Public Petition on a Ban on Herbicides in Public Areas: Discussion
Mr. James Walsh:
I think it is rare, to be honest. They probably look at it sometimes. From another media article, a woman wrote an article about me in a small online news outlet. It was quite popular. A lot of people looked at it. She said she contacted a lot of councils to find out more about it and, as I said, they do not have documented evidence to say how much they sprayed and why they sprayed. They do not have that information. They do not fill it out. They just do it out of pure habit. They hire some guy and they do not even know what the guy has done. Councils hire a contractor and he can do what he likes. They do not even know themselves what it looks like, probably. I was talking to a guy from the roads department where I live. He was sound, actually. He was one of the people who was engaging with the emails and was interested. He did not even know what a road looked like when it is sprayed. He was asking me what roads were sprayed. I told him all the roads had been sprayed and asked him had he not see it since he had hired the contractor. He said he did not know what it looks like and he had just hired the guy.
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